Stanford University

Reliability Challenges in Fabrication of Flexible Hybrid Electronics for Human Performance Monitors: A System Level Study

Nov 10, 2020 | Varun Soman, Student Member, IEEE, Yasser Khan, Madina Zabran, Mark Schadt, Member, IEEE, Paul Hart, Member, IEEE, Michael Shay, Member, IEEE, Frank Egitto, Member, IEEE, Konstantinos Papathomas, Member, IEEE, Natasha A. D. Yamamoto, Donggeon Han, Ana C.

Flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) interface rigid electronic components with flexible sensors, circuits, and substrates. This paper reports the reliability improvement of a FHE Human Performance Monitor (HPM), designed to monitor electrocardiography (ECG) signals....

Design and Integration of aWireless Stretchable Multimodal Sensor Network in a Composite Wing

Oct 08, 2020 | Xiyuan Chen, Loic Maxwell, Franklin Li , Amrita Kumar, Elliot Ransom, Tanay Topac, Sera Lee, Mohammad Faisal Haider , Sameh Dardona and Fu-Kuo Chang

This article presents the development of a stretchable sensor network with high signal-to-noise ratio and measurement accuracy for real-time distributed sensing and remote monitoring. The described sensor network was designed as an island-and-serpentine type network comprising a grid of sensor "islands" connected by interconnecting "serpentines." A novel high-yield manufacturing process was developed to fabricate networks on recyclable 4-inch wafers at a low cost. The resulting stretched sensor network has 17 distributed and functionalized sensing nodes with low tolerance and high resolution. The sensor network includes Piezoelectric (PZT), Strain Gauge(SG), and Resistive Temperature Detector (RTD) sensors. The design and development of a flexible frame with signal conditioning, data acquisition, and wireless data transmission electronics for the stretchable sensor network are also presented. The primary purpose of the frame subsystem is to convert sensor signals into meaningful data, which are displayed in real-time for an end-user to view and analyze. The challenges and demonstrated successes in developing this new system are demonstrated, including (a) developing separate signal conditioning circuitry and components for all three sensor types (b) enabling simultaneous sampling for PZT sensors for impact detection and (c)configuration of firmware/software for correct system operation. The network was expanded with an in-house developed automated stretch machine to expand it to cover the desired area. The released and stretched network was laminated into an aerospace composite wing with edge-mount electronics for signal conditioning, processing, power, and wireless communication....