Novel Self-powered Flexible Thin Bite Force Sensor with Electret and Dielectric Elastomer

Monitoring the bite force is valuable in the treatment of bruxism, an unconscious oral habit.Conventional bite force sensors used in clinical practice are unsuitable for wearable bite force measurement systems because of their size and measurement principles.In this study, a selfpowered bite force sensor composed of an electret and a dielectric elastomer is proposed to realize a mouthguard-type wearable bite force measurement system.A theoretical model of the sensor was constructed to compensate for the nonlinearity between the applied bite force and sensor output voltage.A fabricated large-scale prototype sensor and theoretical model accurately estimated an applied force of up to 50 N.The proposed sensor is expected to realize a selfpowered bite force monitoring system by making it thin and embedding it in a mouthguard.