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Published on: May 23, 2019
Stretchable Triboelectric-Photonic Smart Skin for Tactile and Gesture Sensing
Tianzhao Bu1,2, Tianxiao Xiao1,2, Zhiwei Yang1,2
1CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, Beijing Key Laboratory of Micro-Nano Energy and Sensor, Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100083, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Smart skin is expected to be stretchable and tactile for bionic robots as the medium with the ambient environment. Here, a stretchable triboelectric-photonic smart skin (STPS) is reported that enables multidimensional tactile and gesture sensing for a robotic hand. With a grating-structured metal film as the bioinspired skin stripe, the STPS exhibits a tunable aggregation-induced emission in a lateral tensile range of 0-160%. Moreover, the STPS can be used as a triboelectric nanogenerator for vertical pressure sensing with a maximum sensitivity of 34 mV Pa-1 . The pressure sensing characteristics can remain stable in different stretching conditions, which demonstrates a synchronous and independent sensing property for external stimuli with great durability. By integrating on a robotic hand as a conformal covering, the STPS shows multidimensional mechanical sensing abilities for external touch and different gestures with joints bending. This work has first demonstrated a triboelectric-photonic coupled multifunctional sensing terminal, which may have great applications in human-machine interaction, soft robots, and artificial intelligence.
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