Fur-friendly wearable tracks health of pets

This is the claim of researchers at Imperial College London, whose new health-tracking sensor detects vital signs like heart and breathing rates through fur and up to four layers of clothing.

Transformative electronics reconfigure into wearables

In use, they could help owners keep track of their pets’ health and help vets monitor animals during surgery without the need for shaving. In another application, they could help improve the work of sniffer dogs. In people, they could provide a new way to measure vital signs that can provide measurements over clothing without direct contact with the skin. The research on this new class of sensors is published in Advanced Functional Materials.

In a statement, lead author Dr Firat Guder, of Imperial’s Department of Bioengineering, said: “Our stretchy, flexible invention heralds a whole new type of sensor that can track the health of animals and humans alike.”