MEMS and ECM Sensor Technologies for Cardiorespiratory Sound Monitoring - A Comprehensive Review

TL;DR

This comprehensive review explores MEMS and ECM sensor technologies used in wearable devices for monitoring heart and lung sounds, highlighting recent advancements and their practical applications in cardiorespiratory auscultation.

Contribution

First to summarize ECM and MEMS sensor applications specifically for heart and lung sound analysis in wearable health monitoring devices.

Findings

MEMS sensors, especially piezoelectric transducers, are increasingly used in wearable cardiorespiratory monitors.

ECM microphones are fundamental in traditional and modern stethoscope designs.

Recent decade shows significant progress in MEMS-based wearable auscultation technology.

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive review of cardiorespiratory auscultation sensing devices (i.e., stethoscopes), which is useful for understanding the theoretical aspects and practical design notes. In this paper, we first introduce the acoustic properties of the heart and lungs, as well as a brief history of stethoscope evolution. Then, we discuss the basic concept of electret condenser microphones (ECMs) and a stethoscope based on them. Then, we discuss the microelectromechanical systems (MEMSs) technology, particularly focusing on piezoelectric transducer sensors. This paper comprehensively reviews sensing technologies for cardiorespiratory auscultation, emphasizing MEMS-based wearable designs in the past decade. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to summarize ECM and MEMS applications for heart and lung sound analysis.