A Novel Multi-Point Pressure Sensor for Pulse Signals Acquisition

The pulse diagnosis based on palpation is a fundamental approach within Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for the assessment of human health. In traditional pulse diagnosis, pulse signals are taken at different pressures from three specific parts of the wrist, namely Cun, Guan, and Chi (CGC). However, existing pulse acquisition methods mainly rely on single-point sensors to acquire a single pulse signal, limiting the accuracy of pulse diagnosis, furthermore, devices capable of acquiring all three pulse signals from the CGC positions tend to be complex in structure. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a novel multi-point pressure sensor designed for pulse signal acquisition. The sensor is designed to match the distribution of the CGC positions on the wrist, featuring a simple structure that is capable of simultaneously collecting all pulse signals from the CGC positions. It comprises three independent sensing regions interconnected by thin films, forming an integrated sensor. Each sensing region has been designed with the structure of bump and custom polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) film bonding at the bottom, facilitating efficient transmission of pulse signals. Experiments show that the proposed sensor can stably and effectively acquire pulse signals from the CGC positions, thereby providing new possibilities for further research on pulse diagnosis in TCM.