Flexible Pressure Sensor Based on Porous Elastomer Containing Conductive Filler for Wearable Applications

Abstract

In this work, we report a highly sensitive and flexible capacitive pressure sensor based on a porous dielectric matrix containing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) as conductive fillers. The porous dielectric matrix containing conductive fillers has a high resolution because the conductive fillers increase the dielectric constant of the matrix and make a big difference of dielectric constant between micro-pore in the matrix and matrix itself. This difference leads to high sensitivity. Additionally, the output signal of the pressure sensor shows little variation under different environment disturbances, such as dynamic pressure inputs, temperatures, and different air humidity levels. Furthermore, a robot-arm system, with the ability to move a soft material, is constructed to demonstrate the practical applications.