An Arterial Pulse Signal Acquiring Wristwatch with Flexible Tactile Sensing Dense-Array

This study reports a wristwatch to automatically acquire the arterial pulse signal. A two-dimensional flexible tactile sensing dense-array is integrated in the watch. The dense-array consists of 29 × 3 ultra-small pressure sensing chips, enabling high-resolution tactile perception. The arterial pulse signal contains abundant information regarding cardiovascular conditions. Our wristwatch is able to measure the radial arterial pulse in all 8 dimensions: depth, strength, rate, uniformity, fluency, width, stiffness and stability. As far as we know, this is the first wearable system to record the pulse wave not only in time domain but also in cross-section concurrently. With such comprehensive information, physicians have better access to pulse signal in full aspects. The watch has a compact size, low energy consumption and real-time feedback, highlighting its great potential for ambulatory cardiovascular monitoring.