Polymer MEMS sensor for flow monitoring in biomedical device applications

This paper reports the application of a polymer MEMS flow sensor in sensing critical flows associated with intravenous infusions. Infusion pumps that are used to deliver drugs intravenously currently have no means of accurately sensing the velocity of fluids, thereby pump malfunctions and erroneous dosages remain undetected. The liquid crystal polymer (LCP) MEMS flow sensors presented in this work detect ‘live-rates’ of intravenous (IV) infusions with a threshold detection limit as low as 2 mL/hr.