Magneto-elastic bilayers for sleep apnea monitoring

Abstract

Magneto-elastic bilayers (BLs), consisting of a magnetostrictive layer and a non-magnetic counter layer, show highest sensitivity with respect to bending. This paper describes a biomedical application in the field of sleep apnea screening. A multi-parametric detector fixed at the thorax contains two BLs. One BL yields a skin curvature sensor adjusting itself to curvature variations given by physiological activities. The second BL exhibits a free end thus working as a motion sensor. The two signals are fed into artificial neural networks for the detection of events like normal respiration and apneas, as well as body movements and position.