Ding Xiaoxia, Wu Zhipeng, Gao Mingze, Chen Minkan, Li Jiawei, Wu Tao, Lou Liang
School of Microelectronics, Shanghai University, Shanghai 201800, China.
The Shanghai Industrial μTechnology Research Institute, Shanghai 201899, China.
Micromachines (Basel). 2022 Dec 14;13(12):2221. doi: 10.3390/mi13122221.
Bowel sounds contain some important human physiological parameters which can reflect information about intestinal function. In this work, in order to realize real-time monitoring of bowel sounds, a portable and wearable bowel sound electronic monitor based on piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (PMUTs) is proposed. This prototype consists of a sensing module to collect bowel sounds and a GUI (graphical user interface) based on LabVIEW to display real-time bowel sound signals. The sensing module is composed of four PMUTs connected in parallel and a signal conditioning circuit. The sensitivity, noise resolution, and non-linearity of the bowel sound monitor are measured in this work. The result indicates that the designed prototype has high sensitivity (-142.69 dB), high noise resolution (50 dB at 100 Hz), and small non-linearity. To demonstrate the characteristic of the designed electronic monitor, continuous bowel sound monitoring is performed using the electronic monitor and a stethoscope on a healthy human before and after a meal. Through comparing the experimental results and analyzing the signals in the time domain and frequency domain, this bowel sound monitor is demonstrated to record bowel sounds from the human intestine. This work displays the potential of the sensor for the daily monitoring of bowel sounds.
肠鸣音包含一些重要的人体生理参数，这些参数可以反映肠道功能的相关信息。在这项工作中，为了实现对肠鸣音的实时监测，提出了一种基于压电微机械超声换能器（PMUT）的便携式可穿戴肠鸣音电子监测器。该原型由一个用于采集肠鸣音的传感模块和一个基于LabVIEW的图形用户界面（GUI）组成，用于显示实时肠鸣音信号。传感模块由四个并联的PMUT和一个信号调理电路组成。在这项工作中对肠鸣音监测器的灵敏度、噪声分辨率和非线性进行了测量。结果表明，所设计的原型具有高灵敏度（-142.69 dB）、高噪声分辨率（100 Hz时为50 dB）和小非线性。为了展示所设计电子监测器的特性，在一名健康人进食前后使用该电子监测器和听诊器对其进行连续肠鸣音监测。通过比较实验结果并在时域和频域分析信号，证明了该肠鸣音监测器能够记录人体肠道的肠鸣音。这项工作展示了该传感器在日常肠鸣音监测方面的潜力。
