An intelligent human-machine interface (HMI) is a crucial medium for exchanging information between people and electronics. As one of the most important HMI devices, touch screen sensors are widely applied in personal electronics in daily life. However, as the most commonly used touch screen sensor, capacitive sensors can only detect limited kinds of gestures such as touching and sliding. Here, a triboelectric touch-free screen sensor (TSS) is reported for recognizing diverse gestures in a noncontact operating mode by utilizing the charges naturally carried on the human body. Compared with conventional capacitive sensors, the TSS is capable of detecting various gestures such as the drop and lift of finger with different speeds, making a fist, opening palm, and flipping palm with different directions. Based on the TSS, an intelligent noncontact screen control system is further developed, which is used to unlock the smartphone interface by the noncontact operating mode. This research for the first time proposes the concept that taking the human body itself to participate in triboelectric self-powered noncontact sensing and provides a touch-free design concept to develop the next generation of screen sensors. It can alter the usual way that people operating their personal electronics.

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In smart logistics, traditional manual sorting and sorting systems based on rigid manipulators limit the warehousing development and damage the goods. Here, a nondestructive sorting method based on bionic soft fingers is proposed. This method is implemented by the soft robotic gripper (SRG) for grasping of the breakable objects, the triboelectric sensor (TES) for size sorting of the objects, and the signal processing module. In the fabrication of SRG, the silicon rubber is prepared by controlling the material synthesis process, and its Young’s modulus is 600.91 kPa, which is comparable to the Young’s modulus of skin tissue. Also, the maximum input pressure of SRG is 71.4 kPa. The TES has a linear relationship between pulse number and sliding displacement, and its resolution is 3 mm. It induces pulse signal sequences to quantify the SRG bending state and thus realize the size sorting of objects. Additionally, a nondestructive sorting system based on TES and SRG has been developed for fruit sorting (e.g., apples, oranges), enabling nondestructive grasping and accurate sorting. Its sorting range is 70–120 mm, and the sorting accuracy rate is up to 95%. This work also provides a way for the application of SRG and triboelectric sensors in the sorting field.