Reusable and porous skin patches with thermo-pneumatic adhesion control capability and high water vapor permeability

Abstract

thus, considering individual deviations. Our stress monitoring platform enables individual stress level evaluation into four levels with $76 %$ accuracy. The stress monitoring platform can be utilized in digital mental healthcare devices requiring personalized evaluation of mental health degrees.

thus, enabling repetitive skin adhesion. The moisture permeability of the RPS patch is improved to $733 g/m^2/day$, allowing for long-term skin attachment without causing skin trouble even when attached for up to seven days. The HSM sensor, similar to the RPS patch, controls the adhesion force in the range from 8 to $26 kPa$ on dry and wet skin while enhancing moisture permeability to $543 g/m^2/day$. It measures stress-related physiological signals on the human skin. The stress evaluation protocol derives individualized regression equations effective for stress by analyzing the measured physiological signals through multiple linear regression analysis

We present a reusable and porous skin patch (RPS patch), capable of controlling adhesion force with a thermal-pneumatic method for repetitive use, as well as improving moisture permeability for long-term use without skin troubles. Furthermore, we produce a human stress monitoring sensor (HSM sensor) by integrating physiological signal monitoring sensors into the RPS patch. Simultaneously, we develop a stress evaluation protocol to assess individual stress levels. A stress monitoring platform is developed by combining the HSM sensor and stress evaluation protocol, and the significance of stress evaluation on the platform is validated through a human experiment. We solve two critical issues in skin attachable patch research for measuring physiological signals: 1) the inability for repeated skin attachment due to fixed adhesion force ($\sim 30 kPa$) and 2) the challenge of long-term skin attachment caused by low moisture permeability ($\sim 382 g/m^2/day$). Additionally, we solve a key issue within physiological signal-based stress monitoring research: 3) the standardized stress analysis. 1) We control the skin adhesion force of the RPS patch using thermo-pneumatic pressure generated by the embedded heater on multiple chamber arrays. 2) We improve the moisture permeability of the RPS patch by making the patch with porous materials. 3) We conduct personalized stress analysis using the regression analysis-based stress evaluation protocol that considers the individual deviations by deriving personalized stress regression equations. Furthermore, we produce the HSM sensor by integrating the physiological signal (ECG, pulse wave, temperature, conductance) monitoring sensor into the RPS patch for measuring physiological signals on the human skin. The RPS patch controls the adhesion force ranging from 8 to $29 kPa$ on both dry and wet skin while keeping the stable adhesion force for 48 hours. It shows repeatable adhesion up to 100 times and the adhesion force is restored after the RPS patch is washed with water