Liquid Metal-Based Flexible and Wearable Sensor for Functional Human–Machine Interface

Abstract

Rigid sensors are a mature type of sensor, but their poor deformation and flexibility limit their application range. The appearance and development of flexible sensors provide an opportunity to solve this problem. In this paper, a resistive flexible sensor utilizes gallium−based liquid metal (eutectic gallium indium alloy, EGaIn) and poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) and is fabricated using an injecting thin−line patterning technique based on soft lithography. Combining the scalable fabrication process and unique wire−shaped liquid metal design enables sensitive multifunctional measurement under stretching and bending loads. Furthermore, the flexible sensor is combined with the glove to demonstrate the application of the wearable sensor glove in the detection of finger joint angle and gesture control, which offers the ability of integration and multifunctional sensing of all−soft wearable physical microsystems for human–machine interfaces. It shows its application potential in medical rehabilitation, intelligent control, and so on.