Stretchable Strain Sensors for Human Movement Monitoring

Abstract

Stretchable strain sensors based on organic/inorganic hybrid NanoComposite (NC) have gained wide interest owing to their potential application in health diagnosis, soft robotics, and wearable electronics. This paper describes a facile strategy of micromolding-in-capillary process to fabricate stretchable strain sensors wherein, the sensing material (i.e. one-dimensional (1D) material) is wrapped within silicone rubber (Dragon Skin™ (DS)) to form a sandwich-like structure. The fabricated strain sensors exhibit superb stretchability (wide strain sensing range of up to 180%), and moderately high sensing performance with outstanding stability and durability. They can be applied for human movement monitoring such as finger movements to enable human physiological parameters to be registered and analyzed continuously.