A soft stretchable bending sensor and data glove applications.

Zhong Shen,Xiaodong Li,Mark Hin Pei Lo,Zheng Wang,Michael Z Q Chen,Juan Yi,Yong Hu

doi:10.1186/s40638-016-0051-1

Zhong Shen, Xiaodong Li + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40638-016-0051-1

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Abstract

Soft sensors are required to accommodate the flexible and deformable natures of the human body in wearable device applications. They are also suitable for integration with soft robotic devices to monitor the performance status and provide references for feedback control. However, the choices for bending sensors are still highly limited. In this paper, a soft bending sensor is presented. By careful design with a blend of sensitive and insensitive regions, the sensor could be stretchable while being insensitive to stretching. An analytical study was presented on how to design the sensor with the named bending/stretching feature. This feature enables the sensor to be implemented in measuring human motions where a large amount of skin stretch is involved. Two sensor gloves were designed and fabricated based on the proposed soft bending sensor, aiming for different application scenarios. Both the sensor and the gloves were evaluated using a dedicated evaluation platform with experimental results compared against each other.

Highlights

Soft sensors are receiving growing attention, due to both the global wave of developments in wearable human-centered devices and the recent focus on soft robots [1,2,3,4]
Here we present a novel low-cost soft stretchable bending sensor (Fig. 1) along with two different sensor gloves
The sensor is a combination of electrical components and mechanical design

Summary

Introduction

Soft sensors are receiving growing attention, due to both the global wave of developments in wearable human-centered devices and the recent focus on soft robots [1,2,3,4]. Here we present a novel low-cost soft stretchable bending sensor (Fig. 1) along with two different sensor gloves. L is the length of the sensor in (1) and (3), l is the elongation and Eh is the maximum strain caused by finger bend. We design a stretchable bending sensor that is insensitive to stretching.

Results

Conclusion