Wearable socks with single electrode triboelectric textile sensors for monitoring footsteps

Abstract

Currently available smart-textile sensor integrated into wearables like shoe cannot work independently and sustainably to track physiological parameters of the body, as most of the shoe sensors used today are passive, which do not give out any signal if there is no power supply from the battery. This paper is dealing about self-powered smart textiles shoe sensor to detect footsteps while standing, walking, or running produced by an easy and simple manufacturing technique using single electrode triboelectric mode. Therefore, a smart-textile electrode was produced by commonly available embroidery technique and integrated into shoe insole. This textile insole can be able to sense and detect people’s footsteps, while people wear it with socks of commonly available cloths such as cotton, wool, acrylic, polyester, polyamide, silk etc. Electrical output of the self-powered sensor e.g., open circuit voltage and short-circuit current has been characterized using Oscilloscope and electrometer (Keithley 6514) and observed the sensor to be stable, effective and reliable in sensing pressure to monitor motion, movement or gait analysis. All relevant electronics and an apps have been developed to track the data wirelessly (via smartphone) and demonstrated to prove the effectiveness of the sensor by walking for practical application.