Having large and expensive medical equipment follow you around is impractical. Could the alternative be to embed medical monitoring equipment in the body? Well almost, as the only reason this is not a reality yet is because unlike the human body, which is flexible, electronics are rigid and lose connectivity when they are bent.
Enter rubber-band electronics, where scientists at the McCormick school for Engineering are working on ways to integrate medical devices in the human body. These devices will track a patient’s vital and transmit them to the doctor, requiring minimal input from the user.
The big idea behind the rubber-band electronics is to develop material that allows electronics to bend and stretch to over 200% of their original size while retaining their conductivity. By constructing three dimensional nano networks made from polymers and filling them with liquid metal, researchers have manage to get electricity to flow consistently through the material, even when stretched excessively. This is the kind of flexibility that could allow integration with the human body with out causing problems.
Rubber-band electronics might even have applications that beyond health care. Earlier this year, a video by Aatma Studios went viral, showing what the iPhone 5 might look like had it been designed using rubber-band electronics. As we know, the iPhone 5 does not stretch even by a fraction, but it did make many customers and manufactures open their eyes to a world of possibilities.
So imagine a world where a smart phone can be stretched into a tablet when needed, or a heart patient can be monitored by a physician half way across the world. If rubber-band electronics do manage to gain wide spread use as they are expected to, the future will certainly be very flexible.
By Adi Abdurab