Recent advancements in flexible and wearable sensors for biomedical and healthcare applications

Abstract

With the increasing awareness of personal health management in recent decades, various types of flexible and wearable body sensors have been developed. Thanks to the superiority of advanced wearable technologies, including miniaturization, portability, stretchability, comfort, intelligent human-machine interface, etc, flexible and wearable body sensors hold great promise for next generation biomedicine and healthcare applications. Unfortunately, the data precision, response speed, sensitivity and selectivity, durability, compatibility with flexible substrates, and preparation techniques still need to be enhanced and refined to meet the requirements of clinical evaluations or even commercialization. According to working principles, flexible and wearable sensing platforms can be roughly divided into four categories: physical sensors, chemical sensors, biosensors, and the combination of different types of sensors. Here, a brief review focused on the recent developments of these flexible and wearable sensors applied especially to biomedicine and healthcare is presented. In addition, the existing challenges and potential opportunities ahead in flexible and wearable sensor technologies are discussed. Finally, an outlook of wearable sensing platforms in biomedicine and healthcare is proposed. We hope this review can provide guidance for superior flexible and wearable sensing technologies in the future and can provide an outlook for commercial wearable sensors.