Investigation of Hollow or Stepped Structures for Lightweighting Prove Cover of Patch Type Core Body Thermometer

Abstract

Core body temperature, which is the temperature inside the body, is a useful biological indicator for understanding changes in various physical activities due to its characteristics of being insensitive to external disturbances. However, the gold standard measurement methods require inserting probes in the body, which is highly invasive and unsuitable during activity. Conversely, a patch-type sensor that estimates core body temperature from heat flow changes near the skin surface has been attracting attention as a suitable method during activity. However, its practical challenge has been to improve robustness to environmental changes. Recently, we have solved this problem by improving the conventional measurement probe. Nevertheless, the weight reduction of the measurement probe has been an additional challenge. Here, we focused on the probe cover, which had previously been identified as a significant obstacle to weight reduction. We investigated the potential of applying a typical lightweight structure, such as a hollow or stepped structure, to the probe cover in order to achieve both weight reduction and high accuracy of the measurement probe.