Lifeboat Foundation

Today’s athletes are always on the lookout for new techniques and equipment to help them train more effectively. Modern coaches and sports trainers use intelligent data monitoring through videos and wearable sensors to help enhance athletic conditioning. However, traditional video analysis and wearable sensor technologies often fall short when tasked with producing a comprehensive picture of an athlete’s performance.

Researchers from Lyuliang University have developed a low-cost, flexible, and customizable sensor for badminton players that overcomes current monitoring constraints. The work is published in APL Materials.

Badminton is known for its many technical movements and the dynamic speed and precision required to play successfully. Monitoring the postures, footwork, arm swings, and muscle strength shown by badminton players is limited by video shooting angles and the discomfort of rigid wearable sensors.

Scientists have achieved a series of milestones in growing a high-quality thin film conductor, suggesting in a new study that the material is a promising candidate platform for future wearable electronics and other miniature applications.

Researchers at The Ohio State University, the Army Research Laboratory and MIT determined that the material is the best among similarly built films for its electron mobility—an index of how easy it is for an electrical current to pass through it.

Coupled with low defect density to reduce interference with electron movement on the surface, the material is like a tiny empty freeway where all the electrons can easily get where they need to go with no traffic to be seen.

A newly developed stretchable lithium-ion battery retains efficient charge storage after 70 cycles and expands up to 5000%. This innovation caters to the growing demand for batteries in wearable electronics, ensuring flexibility and durability.

When you think of a battery, you probably don’t think of something stretchy. However, batteries will need this shape-shifting quality to be incorporated into flexible electronics, which are gaining traction for wearable health monitors. Now, researchers in ACS Energy Letters report a lithium-ion battery with entirely stretchable components, including an electrolyte layer that can expand by 5000%, and it retains its charge storage capacity after nearly 70 charge/discharge cycles.

Advancements in Flexible Electronics.

Scientists develop flexible, lead-free perovskite membranes for X-ray detection, achieving high sensitivity and stability. This advance could enable wearable radiation dosimeters.

In the age of technology everywhere, we are all too familiar with the inconvenience of a dead battery. But for those relying on a wearable health care device to monitor glucose, reduce tremors, or even track heart function, taking time to recharge can pose a big risk.

For the first time, researchers in Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering have shown that a health care device can be powered using body heat alone. By combining a pulse oximetry sensor with a flexible, stretchable, wearable thermoelectric energy generator composed of liquid metal, semiconductors, and 3D printed rubber, the team has introduced a promising way to address battery life concerns.

“This is the first step towards battery-free wearable electronics,” said Mason Zadan, Ph.D. candidate and first author of the research published in Advanced Functional Materials.

Headworn tech from a University of Michigan startup could protect agricultural and industrial workers from airborne pathogens.

Taza Aya has created a hard hat with an air curtain that prevents nearly all aerosols from reaching the face, using nonthermal plasma to ensure air purity. Proven effective in tests, this innovative device is designed for industries needing strong respiratory protection and will be available by 2025.

Continue reading “Invisible Shield: Wearable Air Curtain Blocks 99.8% of Aerosol Viruses” »

Researchers have developed a novel 3D stretchable electronic strip which is expected to open up a range of new possibilities in wearable electronic textiles.

A team at Nottingham Trent University’s Medical Technologies Innovation Facility has led the work, which has paved the way for a new generation of electronic devices which could be embedded in clothing for possible use in health care and elite sports settings.

The research, which also involved industry partner Kymira Ltd, is published in Scientific Reports.

Soft bioelectronic devices are made from polymer-based and hybrid electronic materials that form natural interfaces with the human body. In this Review, the authors present recent developments in soft bioelectronic sensors and actuators, and discuss system-level integration for wearable and implantable medical applications.

The only problem with plastic profusion is that “recycling” it is at a “caveman’s” level!

In considering materials that could become the fabrics of the future, scientists have largely dismissed one widely available option: polyethylene.

The stuff of plastic wrap and grocery bags, polyethylene is thin and lightweight, and could keep you cooler than most textiles because it lets heat through rather than trapping it in. But polyethylene would also lock in water and sweat, as it’s unable to draw away and evaporate moisture. This antiwicking property has been a major deterrent to polyethylene’s adoption as a wearable textile.

Continue reading “Could we recycle plastic bags into fabrics of the future?” »