Wearable Stretch Sensors for Motion Measurement of the Wrist Joint Based on Dielectric Elastomers

Huang, Bo; Li, Mingyu; Mei, Tao; McCoul, David; Qin, Shihao; Zhao, Zhanfeng; Zhao, Jianwen

doi:10.3390/s17122708

Cited by 85 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Totaro et al custom designed soft sensors and integrated them into garments for precise movement validated in lower limb joints [14] but this research did not utilize "off-the-shelf" sensors and therefore are limited for future, real-world environment use cases. Other recent studies utilized more commercialized soft robot sensor solutions found in exoskeletons technologies for less complex movements not located around the foot and ankle [15,16]. For the purposes of this study, soft robotic sensors can be identified as silicone-textile (or other soft materials) layered with liquid conductive material and generally identified as resistive or capacitive [17,18].…”

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confidence: 99%

Closing the Wearable Gap: Mobile Systems for Kinematic Signal Monitoring of the Foot and Ankle

et al. 2018

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Interviews from strength and conditioning coaches across all levels of athletic competition identified their two biggest concerns with the current state of wearable technology: (a) the lack of solutions that accurately capture data “from the ground up” and (b) the lack of trust due to inconsistent measurements. The purpose of this research is to investigate the use of liquid metal sensors, specifically Liquid Wire sensors, as a potential solution for accurately capturing ankle complex movements such as plantar flexion, dorsiflexion, inversion, and eversion. Sensor stretch linearity was validated using a Micro-Ohm Meter and a Wheatstone bridge circuit. Sensors made from different substrates were also tested and discovered to be linear at multiple temperatures. An ankle complex model and computing unit for measuring resistance values were developed to determine sensor output based on simulated plantar flexion movement. The sensors were found to have a significant relationship between the positional change and the resistance values for plantar flexion movement. The results of the study ultimately confirm the researchers’ hypothesis that liquid metal sensors, and Liquid Wire sensors specifically, can serve as a mitigating substitute for inertial measurement unit (IMU) based solutions that attempt to capture specific joint angles and movements.

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confidence: 99%

Closing the Wearable Gap: Mobile Systems for Kinematic Signal Monitoring of the Foot and Ankle

et al. 2018

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“…Composites of carbon black (conductive powder) and silicone are widely used, see e.g. [Araromi et al 2015;Huang et al 2017;O'Brien et al 2014;Rosset et al 2016]. A large range of fabrication methods for manufacturing conductive trace patterns have been proposed.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A large range of fabrication methods for manufacturing conductive trace patterns have been proposed. Most methods rely on the potentially costly fabrication of intermediate tools like screen printing masks [Jeong and Lim 2016;Wessely et al 2016], molds [Huang et al 2017;Sarwar et al 2017] or stencils [Rosset et al 2016]. To circumvent the adhesion issue, specialized plasma chambers are often required to selectively pre-treat the base layer [Jin et al 2017].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deformation Capture via Soft and Stretchable Sensor Arrays

et al. 2019

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Fig. 1. Left to right: We propose a method for the fabrication of soft and stretchable silicone based capacitive sensor arrays. The sensor provides dense stretch measurements that, together with a data-driven prior, allow for the capture of surface deformations in real-time and without the need for line-of-sight.We propose a hardware and software pipeline to fabricate flexible wearable sensors and use them to capture deformations without line of sight. Our first contribution is a low-cost fabrication pipeline to embed multiple aligned conductive layers with complex geometries into silicone compounds. Overlapping conductive areas from separate layers form local capacitors that measure dense area changes. Contrary to existing fabrication methods, the proposed technique only requires hardware that is readily available in modern fablabs. While area measurements alone are not enough to reconstruct the full 3D deformation of a surface, they become sufficient when paired with a data-driven prior. A novel semi-automatic tracking algorithm, based on an elastic surface geometry deformation, allows to capture ground-truth data with an optical mocap system, even under heavy occlusions or partially unobservable markers. The resulting dataset is used to train a regressor based on deep neural networks, directly mapping the area readings to global positions of surface vertices. We demonstrate the flexibility and accuracy of the proposed hardware and software in a series of controlled experiments, and design a prototype of wearable wrist, elbow and biceps sensors, which do not require line-of-sight and can be worn below regular clothing.

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“…Repeatability of the resistance-based type is not good, so high precision is hard to be guaranteed [20,25]. Therefore, the capacitive strain sensor is more suitable for human motion measurement, and the capacitive soft sensor based on the dielectric layer of silicone rubber is more advantageous in terms of performance indicators, stability, and lifetime [31]. The group of Prof. Anderson has made significant progress with the dielectric elastomer sensor (DES) based on silicone rubber as applied to detect finger motion [32][33][34] and the leg motion of a diver [35], but the measurement errors are still high.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic Measurement of Legs Motion in Sagittal Plane Based on Soft Wearable Sensors

Feng

McCoul

et al. 2020

Journal of Sensors

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Human motion capture is widely used in exoskeleton robots, human-computer interaction, sports analysis, rehabilitation training, and many other fields. However, soft-sensor-based wearable dynamic measurement has not been well achieved. In this paper, the dynamic measurements of legs were investigated by using dielectric elastomers as stain sensors, and an alternating signal was applied to detect the dynamic rotational angles of the legs. To realize a quick response, parameters of the sensors were optimized by circuit analysis. The sensor can detect hip, knee, and ankle joint motions with a sample frequency of 200 Hz. The measurements of the sensors were compared with a commercial motion capture system from PhaseSpace, and dynamic errors between them were smaller than 3° when squatting and walking at low speed and smaller than 5° when walking at high speed. Experiments therefore demonstrate the feasibility of the integrated wearable stretch sensors with pants.

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Wearable Stretch Sensors for Motion Measurement of the Wrist Joint Based on Dielectric Elastomers

Cited by 85 publications

References 30 publications

Closing the Wearable Gap: Mobile Systems for Kinematic Signal Monitoring of the Foot and Ankle

Closing the Wearable Gap: Mobile Systems for Kinematic Signal Monitoring of the Foot and Ankle

Deformation Capture via Soft and Stretchable Sensor Arrays

Dynamic Measurement of Legs Motion in Sagittal Plane Based on Soft Wearable Sensors

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