Ready-to-wear strain sensing gloves for human motion sensing

• Main Authors: Sara S. Mechael, Yunyun Wu, Yiting Chen, Tricia Breen Carmichael
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021-06-01
• Series: iScience
• Subjects: Sensor; Bioelectronics; Electronic engineering; Nanotechnology fabrication
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221004934

Summary: Integrating soft sensors with wearable platforms is critical for sensor-based human augmentation, yet the fabrication of wearable sensors integrated into ready-to-wear platforms remains underdeveloped. Disposable gloves are an ideal substrate for wearable sensors that map hand-specific gestures. Here, we use solution-based metallization to prepare resistive sensing arrays directly on off-the-shelf nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) gloves. The NBR glove acts as the wearable platform while its surface roughness enhances the sensitivity of the overlying sensing array. The NBR sensors have a sheet resistance of 3.1 ± 0.6 Ω/sq and a large linear working range (two linear regions ≤70%). When stretched, the rough NBR substrate facilitates microcrack formation in the overlying metal, enabling high gauge factors (62 up to 40% strain, 246 from 45 - 70% strain) that are unprecedented for metal film sensors. We apply the sensing array to dynamically monitor gestures for gesture differentiation and robotic control.