A highly stretchable strain sensor based on electrospun carbon nanofibers for human motion monitoring

Abstract

Highly stretchable and sensitive strain sensors are in great demand for human motion monitoring. This work reports a strain sensor based on electrospun carbon nanofibers (CNFs) embedded in a polyurethane (PU) matrix. The piezoresistive properties and the strain sensing mechanism of the CNFs/PU sensor were investigated. The results showed that the CNFs/PU sensor had high stretchability of strain up to 300%, a high sensitivity of gauge factor as large as 72, and superior stability and reproducibility during the 8000 stretch/release cycles. Furthermore, bending of finger, wrist, or elbow was recorded by the resistance change of the sensor, demonstrating that the strain sensor based on CNFs/PU could have promising applications in flexible and wearable devices for human motion monitoring.