Abstract-A novel soft strain sensor capable of withstanding strains of up to 100% is described. The sensor is made of a hyperelastic silicone elastomer that contains embedded microchannels filled with conductive liquids. This is an effort of improving the previously reported soft sensors that uses a single liquid conductor. The proposed sensor employs a hybrid approach involving two liquid conductors: an ionic solution and an eutectic gallium-indium alloy. This hybrid method reduces the sensitivity to noise that may be caused by variations in electrical resistance of the wire interface and undesired stress applied to signal routing areas. The bridge between these two liquids is made conductive by doping the elastomer locally with nickel nanoparticles. The design, fabrication, and characterization of the sensor are presented.Index Terms-Wearable sensors, microfluidics, strain measurement, ionic solution, eutectic gallium indium (eGaIn).
This paper describes the design and manufacturing of soft artificial skin with an array of embedded soft strain sensors for detecting various hand gestures by measuring joint motions of five fingers. The proposed skin was made of a hyperelastic elastomer material with embedded microchannels filled with two different liquid conductors, an ionic liquid and a liquid metal. The ionic liquid microchannels were used to detect the mechanical strain changes of the sensing material, and the liquid metal microchannels were used as flexible and stretchable electrical wires for connecting the sensors to an external control circuit. The two heterogeneous liquid conductors were electrically interfaced through flexible conductive threads to prevent the two liquid from being intermixed. The skin device was connected to a computer through a microcontroller instrumentation circuit for reconstructing the 3-D hand motions graphically. The paper also presents preliminary calibration and experimental results.
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