Flexible and Optical Fiber Sensors Composited by Graphene and PDMS for Motion Detection.

Wang Wang,Huang Huang,Sheng Sheng,Ni Ni,Peng Peng

doi:10.3390/polym11091433

Abstract

A stretchable optical sensor can quantify the strain generated by human movement, which has been widely studied in the development of health monitoring systems, human–machine interfaces and wearable devices. This paper reports a graphene-added polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) fiber, which has high tensile properties and good light transmittance suitable for detecting human movement. When the graphene-added PDMS fiber is stretched, the concentration of graphene per unit volume is constant, and the sensor uses the optical loss of the beam through the graphene PDMS fiber to detect the tensile strain. The fiber has excellent strain-sensing performance, outstanding sensitivity, a tensile property of 150%, and an excellent waterproofing performance. The linear response and repeated response in large dynamic range could reach 100% stability. The results show that the sensor can be used to detect human motion detection. These excellent properties indicate that the fiber has potential applications in wearable devices, soft robots and electronic skin.

Highlights

In recent years, flexible, stretchable and wearable sensor devices have received widespread attention [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
Because the elastic materials have low-cost, scalable, and simple production methods, elastic strain sensors are widely used in a variety of practical applications, such as artificial electronic skins [10,11,12,13], motion detection [14,15], and soft robots [16]
In order to meet these needs, many studies have reported flexible, stretchable and highly sensitive strain or pressure sensors made of graphene polymer [17,18,19,20], carbon nanotubes [21,22] and nanowire composite structures [23,24,25]

Summary

Introduction

Flexible, stretchable and wearable sensor devices have received widespread attention [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. Because the elastic materials have low-cost, scalable, and simple production methods, elastic strain sensors are widely used in a variety of practical applications, such as artificial electronic skins [10,11,12,13], motion detection [14,15], and soft robots [16]. In quantitative detection of strain in flexible materials, strain sensors are required to be sufficiently sensitive to be mechanically compatible and capable of withstanding large deformations. As an imitation of human motion perception ability, the flexible and stretchable strain sensor is expected to achieve the perception performance of human joint movement. The detection of strain is usually based on the change by capacitance or resistance under mechanical variability, and the sensitivity of the strain sensor is reflected by the rate of change.

Methods

Results

Conclusion