A Wireless Monitoring System Using a Tunneling Sensor Array in a Smart Oral Appliance for Sleep Apnea Treatment

作者：Yeh Kun Ying^*; Yeh Chao Chi; Wu Chun Chang; Tang Kuan; Wu Jyun Yi; Chen Yun Ting; Xu Ming Xin; Chen Yunn Jy; Yang Yao Joe; Lu Shey Shi

来源：Sensors, 2017, 17(10): 2358.

DOI：10.3390/s17102358

• sleep apnea
• OSA
• smart oral appliance
• SoC
• sleep monitoring
• tunneling sensor
• wireless
• prototype module

Sleep apnea is a serious sleep disorder, and the most common type is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Untreated OSA will cause lots of potential health problems. Oral appliance therapy is an effective and popular approach for OSA treatment, but making a perfect fit for each patient is time-consuming and decreases its efficiency considerably. This paper proposes a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) enabled sleep monitoring system in a smart oral appliance, which is capable of intelligently collecting the physiological data about tongue movement through the whole therapy. A tunneling sensor array with an ultra-high sensitivity is incorporated to accurately detect the subtle pressure from the tongue. When the device is placed on the wireless platform, the temporary stored data will be retrieved and wirelessly transmitted to personal computers and cloud storages. The battery will be recharged by harvesting external RF power from the platform. A compact prototype module, whose size is 4.5 x 2.5 x 0.9 cm(3), is implemented and embedded inside the oral appliance to demonstrate the tongue movement detection in continuous time frames. The functions of this design are verified by the presented measurement results. This design aims to increase efficiency and make it a total solution for OSA treatment.

• 出版日期2017-10
• 单位中国科学院电工研究所