Cyber–Physiochemical Interfaces

Abstract

Living things rely on various physical, chemical, and biological interfaces, e.g., somatosensation, olfactory/gustatory perception, and nervous system response. They help organisms to perceive the world, adapt to their surroundings, and maintain internal and external balance. Interfacial information exchanges are complicated but efficient, delicate but precise, and multimodal but unisonous, which has driven researchers to study the science of such interfaces and develop techniques with potential applications in health monitoring, smart robotics, future wearable devices, and cyber physical/human systems. To understand better the issues in these interfaces, a cyber–physiochemical interface (CPI) that is capable of extracting biophysical and biochemical signals, and closely relating them to electronic, communication, and computing technology, to provide the core for aforementioned applications, is proposed. The scientific and technical progress in CPI is summarized, and the challenges to and strategies for building stable interfaces, including materials, sensor development, system integration, and data processing techniques are discussed. It is hoped that this will result in an unprecedented multi‐disciplinary network of scientific collaboration in CPI to explore much uncharted territory for progress, providing technical inspiration—to the development of the next‐generation personal healthcare technology, smart sports‐technology, adaptive prosthetics and augmentation of human capability, etc.

Portable Food‐Freshness Prediction Platform Based on Colorimetric Barcode Combinatorics and Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

“…Mimicking the olfactory system for accurate, portable and real‐time artificial scent screening requires two crucial and inseparable components: cross‐reactive sensing and fingerprint pattern recognition. [ 7–9 ] Inspired by nature, artificial scent screening systems resembling the mammalian system (known as E‐noses, opto‐noses for olfactory, and E‐tongue for taste) have been developed for disease diagnosis [ 10 ] and detection of environmental contaminants, [ 11,12 ] explosives, [ 13 ] food, and drugs. [ 14–17 ] Cross‐reactive sensing in these artificial systems is achieved using cross‐reactive metal oxide [ 18,19 ] or colorimetric sensor arrays [ 20–23 ] that interact differentially with target molecules to generate a fingerprint pattern.…”

A Compliant Ionic Adhesive Electrode with Ultralow Bioelectronic Impedance

“…Ionic conduction in the biological system plays a central role in the transmission of vital signs and performing physiological activities, such as the transmission of nerve signals, muscle contraction, heart beating, and blood pressure control. [ 1–24 ] Highly efficiently and precisely collecting or delivering these ionic signals are of great interest in clinical neurophysiology and material science for future wisdom medical and AI device controlling. [ 1,25–30 ] Therefore, an electrode that complies with the curved biological surface and has low bioelectrical interfacial impedance (the ideal impedance of electrode‐skin system is 6–10 kΩ which is the intrinsic impedance of skin) is in demand to effectively couple the ionic fluxes in electrolytic tissues and electronic current in recording devices.…”

Mechanical Tolerance of Cascade Bioreactions via Adaptive Curvature Engineering for Epidermal Bioelectronics

“…Epidermal bioelectronics open a window to monitor human health status via a non‐invasive, real‐time, and user‐friendly way. [ 1–4 ] Recent years have witnessed their success in healthcare with increasing applications on epidermal electrophysiology and metabolites in perspiration. [ 5–8 ] One necessity as well as a challenge for epidermal bioelectronics is mechanical tolerance, that is, the ability to withstand mechanical deformations, which is a vital parameter to preserve signal fidelity in an inherent dynamic and stretchable epidermal system.…”