The team at the University of Illinois, led by John Rogers, have dubbed the innovation “smart skin”. It currently uses a transfer printing fabrication system to create flexible devices with tiny circuitry that can be applied to the skin and retain integrity even when bent, twisted or otherwise deformed.

The scale of the electronics involved means they do not need battery power and instead can get their charge from solar components, or be designed to take advantage of the movement of the patient.

Potential applications include the biomedical markets, to replace devices such as heart monitors that can be intrusive or not mobile.

Rogers told ProPrint‘s UK sister title, PrintWeek: “We are focused on healthcare generally, and physiological status monitoring, physical rehabilitation and human-machine interfaces in particular.”

However, a new company, MC10, has been set up in Cambridge, Massachusetts to commercialise the technology, and is currently working on a project with sports brand Reebok.

The team  believes the technology has broad applications such as enabling patients with muscular or neurological diseases to communicate with computers and have already demonstrated a prototype that can recognise speech based on muscle movements and shown how it can be used to control video games.

With smart skin devices less than 50 microns thick, fabrication will be a key factor in its success. Rogers said conventional printed electronics methods such as pick-and-place units were not suitable. “So we’ve developed soft stamping methods as alternatives,” he said.

“We are also interested in high-resolution forms of inkjet but we did not have to use such methods for these particular devices.

“Printing of this type might, however, have the potential to reduce costs in manufacturing.”

This article originally appeared at printweek.com

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