A research team led by Prof. Jerald Yoo from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University (SNU) has developed a skin-conformal wearable health care system, “SkinECG,” capable of measuring electrocardiogram (ECG) signals without a battery. By combining energy harvesting with human body–coupled power transfer, the study presents a new solution to one of the most critical challenges in wearable devices: power supply.

Wearable health care systems are emerging as next-generation medical technologies that enable real-time monitoring of physiological signals through body-worn sensors, allowing early detection of disease-related abnormalities.

A representative example is the electrocardiography (ECG) sensor, which measures electrical signals generated by the heart and is essential for detecting cardiovascular conditions such as arrhythmia.