Outdoor Worker Stress Monitoring Electronics with Nanofabric Radiative Cooler‐Based Thermal Management

• Published in: Advanced healthcare materials Vol. 12; no. 28; p. e2301104
• Main Authors: Kim, Hojoong, Yoo, Young Jin, Yun, Joo Ho, Heo, Se‐Yeon, Song, Young Min, Yeo, Woon‐Hong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.11.2023
• Subjects: Air temperature; Bioelectricity; Controllability; Data loss; Electronic components; Hot working; In vivo methods and tests; Portable equipment; Thermal management; Wearable computers; Wearable technology; Workers; outdoor workers stress; nanofabric radiative cooler; Soft bioelectronics; galvanic skin response; wearable wireless sensor
• ISSN: 2192-2640; 2192-2659; 2192-2659
• DOI: 10.1002/adhm.202301104

Severe stress endangers outdoor workers who are in an exceedingly hot workplace. Although recent studies quantify stress levels on the human skin, they still rely on rigid, bulky sensor modules, causing data loss from motion artifacts and limited field‐deployability for continuous health monitoring. Moreover, no prior work shows a wearable device that can endure heat exposure while showing continuous monitoring of a subject's stress under realistic working environments. Herein, a soft, field‐deployable, wearable bioelectronic system is introduced for detecting outdoor workers' stress levels with negligible motion artifacts and controllable thermal management. A nanofabric radiative cooler (NFRC) and miniaturized sensors with a nanomembrane soft electronic platform are integrated to measure stable electrodermal activities and temperature in hot outdoor conditions. The NFRC exhibits outstanding cooling performance in sub‐ambient air with high solar reflectivity and high thermal emissivity. The integrated wearable device with all embedded electronic components and the NFRC shows a lower temperature (41.1%) in sub‐ambient air than the NFRC‐less device while capturing improved operation time (18.2%). In vivo human study of the bioelectronics with agricultural activities demonstrates the device's capability for portable, continuous, real‐time health monitoring of outdoor workers with field deployability.