Soft Ultrasonic Technologies for Continuous Monitoring of Deep Tissues

Soft wearable devices that can noninvasively and continuously acquire physiological signals from the human body represent an important trend for healthcare. Existing soft devices can monitor various signals from the human body, but those signals are limited to either the surface or very shallow (< 8 mm) below the skin. There are a lot more activities in deep tissues that have a stronger and faster correlation with the diseases and symptoms of the human body. In this presentation, I will demonstrate a wearable ultrasonic technology that allows noninvasively and continuously monitoring events 14 cm below the skin surface. Continuous blood pressure waveforms and blood flow spectra in central arteries and veins, and dynamic motions of heart chamber walls are exemplary use cases of the soft ultrasonic technology. This enabling platform effectively adds a new third-dimension to the detection range of existing wearable devices, and thus holds profound implications for a wide range of applications in consumer electronics, defense medicine, and clinical practices.