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Arab Hassani. Soft Sci 2023;3:31 Soft Science
DOI: 10.20517/ss.2023.23

Review Article Open Access

Bioreceptor-inspired soft sensor arrays: recent

progress towards advancing digital healthcare

Faezeh Arab Hassani *
School of Electrical, Electronic, and Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UB, United Kingdom.

* Correspondence to: Dr. Faezeh Arab Hassani, School of Electrical, Electronic, and Mechanical Engineering, University of
Bristol, 75 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UB, United Kingdom. E-mail: faezeh.arabhassani@bristol.ac.uk

How to cite this article: Arab Hassani F. Bioreceptor-inspired soft sensor arrays: recent progress towards advancing
digital healthcare. Soft Sci 2023;3:31. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/ss.2023.23

Received: 15 May 2023 First Decision: 14 Jun 2023 Revised: 3 Aug 2023 Accepted: 11 Aug 2023 Published: 24 Aug 2023

Academic Editor: Zhifeng Ren Copy Editor: Pei-Yun Wang Production Editor: Pei-Yun Wang

Abstract
Recent advances in soft sensor technology have pushed digital healthcare toward life-changing solutions. Data
reliability and robustness can be realised by building sensor arrays that collect comprehensive biological parameter
data from several points on the underlying organs simultaneously, a principle that is inspired by bioreceptors. The
rapid growth of soft lithography and printing, three-dimensional (3D) printing, and weaving/knitting technologies
has facilitated the low-cost development of soft sensors in the array format. Advances in data acquisition,
processing, and visualisation techniques have helped with the collection of meaningful data using arrays and their
presentation to users on personal devices through wireless communication interfaces. Local- or cloud-based data
storage helps with the collection of adequate data from sensor arrays over time to facilitate reliable prognoses
based on historical data. Emerging energy harvesting technologies have led to the development of techniques to
power sensor arrays sustainably. This review presents developmental building blocks in wearable and artificial
organ-based soft sensor arrays, including bioreceptor-inspired sensing mechanisms, fabrication methods, digital
data-acquisition techniques, methods to present the results to users, power systems, and target
diseases/conditions for treatment or monitoring. Finally, we summarise the challenges associated with the
development of single and multimodal array sensors for advanced digital healthcare and suggest possible solutions
to overcome them.

Keywords: Bioreceptor-inspired, soft sensor arrays, multimodal, senses of vision, hearing, taste, smell, spatial
perception

INTRODUCTION
Low energy requirements and high sensitivity are two of the characteristics of biological receptors . The
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© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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