A new 3D, microfluidic-oriented, multi-functional, and highly stretchable soft wearable sensor. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Increasing demand for wearable devices has resulted in the development of soft sensors; however, an excellent soft sensor for measuring stretch, twist, and pressure simultaneously has not been proposed yet. This paper presents a novel, fully 3D, microfluidic-oriented, gel-based, and highly stretchable resistive soft sensor. The proposed sensor is multi-functional and could be used to measure stretch, twist, and pressure, which is the potential of using a fully 3D structure in the sensor. Unlike previous methods, in which almost all of them used EGaIn as the conductive material, in this case, we used a low-cost, safe (biocompatible), and ubiquitous conductive gel instead. To show the functionality of the proposed sensor, FEM simulations and a set of designed experiments were done, which show linear (99%), accurate (> 94.9%), and durable (tested for a whole of four hours) response of the proposed sensor. Then, the sensor was put through its paces on a female test subject's knee, elbow, and wrist to show the potential application of the sensor as a body motion sensor. Also, a fully 3D active foot insole was developed, fabricated, and evaluated to evaluate the pressure functionality of the sensor. The result shows good discrimination and pressure measurement for different foot sole areas. The proposed sensor has the potential to be used in real-world applications like rehabilitation, wearable devices, soft robotics, smart clothing, gait analysis, AR/VR, etc.

authors

  • Annabestani, Mohsen
  • Esmaeili-Dokht, Pouria
  • Olyanasab, Ali
  • Orouji, Nooshin
  • Alipour, Zeynab
  • Sayad, Mohammad Hossein
  • Rajabi, Kimia
  • Mazzolai, Barbara
  • Fardmanesh, Mehdi

publication date

  • November 28, 2022

Research

keywords

  • Elbow Joint
  • Wearable Electronic Devices

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC9705553

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 85142778460

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1021/acsami.0c08114

PubMed ID

  • 36443353

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 12

issue

  • 1