An ultrasound sensor attached like a stamp kept producing images for up to 48 hours in an MIT experiment. The team reported the device in Science in July 2022, pairing a rigid sensor array with a stretchy adhesive.
The engineering problem is easy to overlook. Ultrasound needs good contact with skin and a material that carries sound between the sensor and body. Ordinary gel can move away or dry out during long recordings.
Making the entire sensor stretchy introduces another problem. The small sound-emitting elements can shift relative to one another. That changes the geometry used to reconstruct an image.
MIT split those jobs. A rigid array kept the elements in position. Beneath it, two elastic layers enclosed a water-rich hydrogel, helping it stay hydrated while the lower layer adhered to skin.
Healthy volunteers wore the devices during laboratory activities including sitting, jogging and cycling. The researchers reported stable attachment and images of underlying structures over the test period.
This was a hardware demonstration, not a wireless consumer product. The stickers still connected to external instruments that turned returning sound signals into images. Wireless operation remained a development goal in the 2022 report.
That distinction matters when a device looks as simple as a bandage. The visible patch was only one part of the equipment. The experiment demonstrated sustained contact and imaging; the cable was still there.
