Stretchable and Compliant Textile Strain Sensors

Abstract

This paper presents the manufacturing process and electromechanical characterization of highly stretchable textile strain sensors. These sensors can be used in self-sensing soft robots or motion tracking. To improve linearity and compliance of silver-plated yarns, the braiding technology is used to fabricate both resistive and capacitive strain sensors. Braiding is a highly productive and automated process and the resulting sensor properties can be improved. Moreover, the braids can be further processed to complex textiles. In the fabrication process different base materials are used and the braiding density as well as the composition of the conductive threads in the braid are varied. With the produced samples electro-mechanical characterization experiments are carried out to analyze the sensors’ properties, e.g. gauge factor, linearity, hysteresis and compliance. The experimental results are correlated with the material and process parameters. Both, braiding density and base material, have an enormous influence on the sensor characteristics. The most promising sensor type was integrated into a soft actuator. This demonstrates the feasibility of such textile sensors to provide self-sensing capabilities and proprioception to soft robots.