Strain-sensing fabrics for wearable kinaesthetic-like systems

Abstract

In recent years, an innovative technology based on polymeric conductors and semiconductors has undergone rapid growth. These materials offer several advantages with respect to metals and inorganic conductors: lightness, large elasticity and resilience, resistance to corrosion, flexibility, impact strength, etc. These properties are suitable for implementing wearable devices. In particular, a sensitive glove able to detect the position and the motion of fingers and a sensorized leotard have been developed. Here, the characterization of the strain-sensing fabric is presented. In the first section, the polymerization process used to realize the strain sensor is described. Then, the thermal and mechanical transduction properties of the strain sensor are investigated and a geometrical parameter to invariantly codify the sensor response during aging is proposed. Finally, a brief outline of ongoing applications is reported.

Electro-Conductive Sensors and Heating Elements Based on Conductive Polymer Composites in Woven Structures

“…Such intelligent materials are made by coating or treating textile yarns, filaments or fabrics with nanoparticles or conductive & semi-conductive polymers giving them special properties. A review of piezoresistive sensing approaches already being applied to measure strain in fabrics/composites shows that several sensing mechanisms exist (Dharap et al, 2004;Lorussi et al, 2005;Scilingo et al, 2003;Fiedler et al, 2004). These approaches may be categorized on the basis of manufacturing technology as nanotube networks, use of carbon tows for self-sensing and semi-conductive coatings.…”

Three-dimensionally deformable, highly stretchable, permeable, durable and washable fabric circuit boards

“…FCBs mechanically support and electrically connect discrete electronic components by using conductive tracks or others made from electrically conductive fibrous materials of metal, conductive polymers or composites, prints or coatings, supported by dielectric fibrous structures [10,11]. FCB technologies, instead of cumbersome cables which inevitably restrict certain movements [12][13][14][15][16][17], enable the whole FCB assembly to be worn on three-dimensional human bodies in real daily activities [18], thereby opening up a large number of potential applications such as electronic skins [19,20], conformable sensor networks (or arrays) on human bodies [10,[21][22][23][24] and biointegrated systems for health monitoring or therapeutic purposes [16,[25][26][27][28][29].…”

Design and Development of Polyaniline-coated Fabric Strain Sensor for Goniometry Applications

“…These sensors have been used to measure human body movements or respiratory activity [1&2]. De Rossi et al [3] created strain sensing fabrics by coating Lycra/cotton fabrics with polypyrrole and carbon loaded rubbers. Polypyrrole-coated fabrics showed an average gauge factor of about −13.…”