Abstract
Recently, the stretchable piezoresistive composites have become a focus in the fields of the biomechanical sensing and human posture recognition because they can be directly and conformally attached to bodies and clothes. Here, we present a stretchable piezoresistive thread sensor (SPTS) based on Ag plated glass microspheres (Ag@GMs)/solid rubber (SR) composite, which was prepared using new shear dispersion and extrusion vulcanization technology. The SPTS has the high gauge factors (7.8~11.1) over a large stretching range (0–50%) and approximate linear curves about the relative change of resistance versus the applied strain. Meanwhile, the SPTS demonstrates that the hysteresis is as low as 2.6% and has great stability during 1000 stretching/releasing cycles at 50% strain. Considering the excellent mechanical strain-driven characteristic, the SPTS was carried out to monitor posture recognitions and facial movements. Moreover, the novel SPTS can be successfully integrated with software and hardware information modules to realize an intelligent gesture recognition system, which can promptly and accurately reflect the produced electrical signals about digital gestures, and successfully be translated into text and voice. This work demonstrates great progress in stretchable piezoresistive sensors and provides a new strategy for achieving a real-time and effective-communication intelligent gesture recognition system.
Highlights
As flexible electronics continue to develop in reliability and comfort, the applications of stretchable and wearable sensing electronics in biomechanical detection and gesture recognition have attracted the attention of many scholars [1,2,3,4]
To obtain a stretchable piezoresistive sensor, proper materials selection plays an important role in our work
The polymer chain of solid rubber (SR) was crosslinked with the curing agent at high temperature and high pressure, and the mixture was extruded into a stretchable piezoresistive thread sensor with a diameter of 1 mm
Summary
As flexible electronics continue to develop in reliability and comfort, the applications of stretchable and wearable sensing electronics in biomechanical detection and gesture recognition have attracted the attention of many scholars [1,2,3,4]. The stretchable piezoresistive composites are usually achieved by mechanically stirring the conductive materials into liquid polymers. The stirring and rotating force is not enough to break the strong viscosity of the polymer and the large filler agglomeration, resulting in the cluster effect of the nanomaterials. The solvents such as methylbenzene with inherent hyper-toxicity are always added to obtain a uniformly distributed composite, the sensors formed in this way are not suitable for long-term configuration on the skin and human joints. Exploring a stretchable piezoresistive sensor based on the homogeneous dispersion of fillers in hyper-elastomer matrix plays an extremely important role in the development of stretchable electronics. The novel SPTS has great potential in developing the generation of intelligent sign language recognition electronics
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