Textile-Based Mechanical Sensors: A Review

Abstract

Innovations related to textiles-based sensors have drawn great interest due to their outstanding merits of flexibility, comfort, low cost, and wearability. Textile-based sensors are often tied to certain parts of the human body to collect mechanical, physical, and chemical stimuli to identify and record human health and exercise. Until now, much research and review work has been carried out to summarize and promote the development of textile-based sensors. As a feature, we focus on textile-based mechanical sensors (TMSs), especially on their advantages and the way they achieve performance optimizations in this review. We first adopt a novel approach to introduce different kinds of TMSs by combining sensing mechanisms, textile structure, and novel fabricating strategies for implementing TMSs and focusing on critical performance criteria such as sensitivity, response range, response time, and stability. Next, we summarize their great advantages over other flexible sensors, and their potential applications in health monitoring, motion recognition, and human-machine interaction. Finally, we present the challenges and prospects to provide meaningful guidelines and directions for future research. The TMSs play an important role in promoting the development of the emerging Internet of Things, which can make health monitoring and everyday objects connect more smartly, conveniently, and comfortably efficiently in a wearable way in the coming years.

Multifunctional and stretchable graphene/textile composite sensor for human motion monitoring

“…Textiles are a more ideal substrate, with their large surface area, breathability and flexibility making them suitable for functionalizing materials over conventional strain sensor materials 9,24 . They can also be more cost effective and lightweight 25–27 …”

“…9,24 They can also be more cost effective and lightweight. [25][26][27] Various carbon materials, conductive polymers and metals have been used to coat fabrics to fabricate sensors. [28][29][30][31] Among various conductive materials, graphene has outstanding electrical, mechanical, and thermal properties, which exhibits great potential as a conductive substrate in textile strain sensors.…”

A Survey on Wireless Wearable Body Area Networks: A Perspective of Technology and Economy

“…They are low-cost, comfortable, and flexible. They can be used remotely to observe the physiological parameters of the human body [ 64 ]. The development of textile-based energy storage devices are outstanding research works that can be used in wearable technology to address the power consumption issues [ 65 ].…”

High-Strength and Extensible Electrospun Yarn for Wearable Electronics

“…1−3 Highly conductive yarns are ultimate candidates for wearable electronics because of their flexibility, fiber-shaped, wearability, and conformability characteristics. 4,5 The potential applications of wearable electronic systems were developed, for example, in strain sensor-based yarns, 6,7 stretchable circuits, 8,9 human motion detection, 10,11 and selfpowered electronic fabrics. 12,13 Different methods have been employed to enhance the conductivity of fibers including metal nanowires, coating the fibers with conductive films, and conductive polymers for highly stretchable electronics in the field of wearable energy devices 14−16 and wearable sensors.…”

“…With the advantages of being affordable and extensively accessible, fabrics have recently attracted the wearable electronics field. − Highly conductive yarns are ultimate candidates for wearable electronics because of their flexibility, fiber-shaped, wearability, and conformability characteristics. , The potential applications of wearable electronic systems were developed, for example, in strain sensor-based yarns, , stretchable circuits, , human motion detection, , and self-powered electronic fabrics. , Different methods have been employed to enhance the conductivity of fibers including metal nanowires, coating the fibers with conductive films, and conductive polymers for highly stretchable electronics in the field of wearable energy devices − and wearable sensors. − A conductive polymer yarn, comprising a polymer and conductive materials, is counted as a promising candidate to diminish the defect of the earliest rigidity and difficult to bend or stretch fiber-based sensors because of its good flexibility and restorability of electrical conductivity. − Even though a conductive polymer yarn fabricated by the coating technique exhibits electrical conductivity and great stretchability, the durability and repeatability cannot satisfy the working conditions over a lengthy operating period because of the weak adhesion among the polymer surface and the conductive material. − Under repetitive stretch and release cycles, the conductive material from the surface of the fibers gets debonded and peeled gradually, and degradation of sensing response occurs. Therefore, manufacturing high-performance yarn-based devices with high strength and large stretchability with a simple, cost-effective, and scalable method remains a great challenge for wearable electronics.…”