A mandibular advancement device embedded with polymer-based tunneling piezoresistive pressure sensing array

In this work, a mandibular advancement device integrated with a highly-sensitive pressure sensing array and a system-on-a-chip (SoC) is presented. The device is designed for monitoring the tongue pressure distributions of patients for treating orofacial disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea syndrome and snoring. The pressure sensing array consists of a conductive polymer assembled with interdigital electrodes, and the SoC chip possesses the capabilities of array scanning and RF transmission. Microdome structures were patterned on the conductive polymer for enhancing the sensitivity of pressure sensing. The proposed device exhibit excellent sensitivity and rapid response. The pressure patterns induced by the tongue positions before and after the tongue drop during sleep were also presented.