Progress in wearable acoustical sensors for diagnostic applications

With extensive and widespread uses of miniaturized and intelligent wearable devices, continuously monitoring subtle spatial and temporal changes in human physiological states becomes crucial for daily healthcare and professional medical diagnosis. Wearable acoustical sensors and related monitoring systems can be comfortably applied onto human body with a distinctive function of non-invasive detection. This paper reviews recent ad-vances in wearable acoustical sensors for medical applications. Structural designs and characteristics of the structural components of wearable electronics, including piezoelectric and capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (i.e., pMUT and cMUT), surface acoustic wave sensors (SAW) and triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are discussed, along with their fabrication techniques and manufacturing processes. Diagnostic appli-cations of these wearable sensors for detection of biomarkers or bioreceptors and diagnostic imaging have further been discussed. Finally, main challenges and future research directions in these fields are highlighted.

Automated summary

With the increasing use of miniaturized and intelligent wearable devices, it has become crucial to continuously monitor subtle spatial and temporal changes in human physiological states for daily healthcare and professional medical diagnosis. This paper reviews recent advances in wearable acoustical sensors for medical applications, including their structural designs, fabrication techniques, and diagnostic applications. The challenges and future research directions in this field are also highlighted.