These can be used for diagnosis of pulse rate variability in humans, robotics and bio-medical applications
Researcher has developed low-cost soft, flexible, and wearable sensors that can be used for diagnosis of pulse rate variability in humans. Being a high sensitivity flexible pressure/strain sensor, it can also be used for small- and large-scale motion monitoring, with potential applications in robotics, prosthetics, as well as minimal invasive surgery and identification of tumor/cancerous cells. Dr. Dipti Gupta from IIT Bombay has fabricated these tactile (pressure and strain) sensors using low-cost polyurethane foam and nanomaterial-based inks that can coat several substrates with support from the Advanced Manufacturing Technologies programme of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India. Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was used as the sensing material. The fabrication of sensors based on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) as the sensing material was challenging due to the intrinsic hydrophobic behavior of graphene oxide inks as well as the agglomeration of graphene oxide flakes after reduction.
