Review—Human-Body Powered Biosensing Textiles: Body-Power Generating Wearables Based on Textiles for Human Biomonitoring

Abstract

The rise of wearable technology has gradually shifted modern health monitoring from clinical to personal use. Smart wearables can collect physiological signals and show them directly on a smartphone. In contemporary healthcare scenarios, this big data could aid medical doctors in online health analysis. Most currently available wearables are designed to monitor specific health parameters, while the combination of many devices is practically not convenient and not cost-effective. Therefore, a strong trend is towards the development of multifunctional devices. This demands, however, alternative sources of power other than conventional batteries. The concept of human-body-powered biosensing textiles (HBBTs) addresses this challenge. By harvesting energy produced from the human body such as motion, pressure, vibration, heat, and metabolites and converting them into electricity, HBBTs could potentially work without a battery. Additionally, the textiles themselves provide a suitable substrate for interconnects and biosensors, such that a system based on HBBTs could provide multifunctional health monitoring. This review explains the fundamental theories, the classification, the energy-conversion efficiency assessment, and the possible biomonitoring applications of HBBTs. Furthermore, we discuss the challenges for technology maturity and the perspectives of HBBTs in shaping the future of health monitoring.