Sensors & Wearables

A team of researchers at the University of Florida (UF), Gainesville, are using sensor technology placed in the helmets of their football players to help measure the force of on-field hits to better understand and prevent concussions and treat them before they cause lasting damage.

Electrical engineers at the Novel Devices Lab at theUniversity of Cincinnati have created a lightweight, wearable device that can analyze sweat using a smartphone, which, they say, can gather vital medical information in almost real time, and provide more accurate health diagnostics in a way...

A team of engineers at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, has invented a wireless pressure sensor that can measure brain pressure in lab mice with brain injuries. But that’s not all. The technology, they say, could one day be used to create skin-like materials that can sense pressure,...

Tekscan, Inc., Boston, MA, announces its latest sensor offering: the FlexiForce® Enhanced Stability Series 301 (ESS301). The sensor is made from pressure-sensitive ink that allows for high quality performance with the added benefit of measuring force in a wider range of temperature and humidity, and performing...

A team of scientists from the University of Surrey, UK, and Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, report that they have developed a new type of flexible sensor that is inexpensive yet sensitive enough to measure a patient’s breathing, heart rate, or movement, alerting doctors to any irregularities.

Following surgery, a physician generally listens to the abdomen of a patient for signs of digestion before allowing that patient to be fed, in order to avoid a condition called post-operative ileus, a malfunction of the intestines. Dr. Brennan Spiegel, a professor of medicine at the David...

A team of engineers at MIT, Cambridge, MA, have fabricated a new elastic material covered with microscopic, hair-like structures that tilt in response to a magnetic field. Depending on the field’s orientation, they say, the microhairs uniformly tilt to form a path through which fluid can flow. They...

The NIH’s Bionic Man site helps viewers visually explore some of the latest bioengineering creations from research funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. From prosthetics to artificial kidneys, these technologies are changing lives now and in the future.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, say that they have built and demonstrated a chip-scale device that both produces and detects a specialized gas used in biomedical analysis and medical imaging. The new microfluidic chip produces polarized (or...

A team of engineering researchers at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, say they have developed a wireless health-monitoring system that could continuously monitor an entire team of football players for physiological signs of concussion. The system includes a dry, textile-based nanosensor and accompanying...

Move over Iron Man! There’s a new engineering superhero who’s part bionic, able to change his height, and scale vertical rock and ice walls with a simple change of leg prosthetics that he designed himself. Not only that, but he designs bionic limbs for others, too.