Textile-Only Capacitive Sensors with a Lockstitch Structure for Facile Integration in Any Areas of a Fabric

A woven structure has been gradually applied in capacitive pressure sensing due to its good performance for fabric integration. However, restricted by the square-cross arrangement of yarns, the woven structure sensors are typically limited to being implemented in rather rectangular areas of a fabric. For nonrectangular areas, a lockstitch structure is shown to be excellent for preparing textile-only capacitive sensors which are based on the conductive core-spun yarns. The lockstitch structure, which is inspired by the stitch type used for sewing, ensures the facile integration of the sensors on the fabric of interest at any position by sewing. The sensors with this novel approach only occupy small spaces, and hence will not affect the overall softness of the fabric at large. Importantly, they show good performance in signaling, sensitivity, stability, and robustness.