Wireless measurement of orthodontic forces in invisible aligners

Invisible orthodontic treatment is an effective form of malocclusion treatment favored in recent years.The magnitude of its orthodontic force has a crucial impact on the outcome of the treatment and has gained a high level of clinical interest.However,there are very few explorations of in vivo measurements of orthodontic force,and existing studies are limited to a large number of couplings,which are inconvenient for clinical use.In this work,we developed a wireless flexible measurement system that allows quantitative measurement of the orthodontic force of an invisible aligner on a dental model.The system is wireless,tiny,flexible,fast responding,and has a range suitable for the range of orthodontic forces.We show the difference in the orthodontic force applied to different tooth positions and the difference in the orthodontic force applied to different positions of the same tooth.In addition,the system can evaluate the mechanical differences between aligners of different brands and materials as well as the deviation of fabrication results.This system provides a test tool and evaluation method for future real-time assessment of clinical orthodontic forces.

Wireless passive flexible accelerometer fabricated using micro-electro-mechanical system technology for bending structure surfaces

We propose an inductor-capacitor(LC)wireless passive flexible accelerometer,which eliminates the difficulty in measuring the acceleration on the surface of a bending structure.The accelerometer is composed of a flexible polyimide(PI)substrate and a planar spiral inductance coil(thickness 300 nm),made using micro-electro-mechanical system(MEMS)technology.It can be bent or folded at will,and can be attached firmly to the surface of objects with a bending structure.The principle of radio frequency wireless transmission is used to measure the acceleration signal by changing the distance between the accelerometer and the antenna.Compared with other accelerometers with a lead wire,the accelerometer can prevent the lead from falling off in the course of vibration,thereby prolonging its service life.Through establishment of an experimental platform,when the distance between the antenna and accelerometer was 5 mm,the characterization of the surface of bending structures demonstrated the sensing capabilities of the accelerometer at accelerations of 20-100 m/s2.The results indicate that the acceleration and peak-to-peak output voltage were nearly linear,with accelerometer sensitivity reaching 0.27 mV/(m·s-2).Moreover,the maximum error of the accelerometer was less than 0.037%.