Key Laboratory of Opto-Electronic Science and Technology for Medicine of Ministry of Education, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Photonics Technology, College of Photonic and Electronic Engineering, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117, China.
The Shanghai Key Laboratory of Multidimensional Information Processing, School of Communication and Electronic Engineering, East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai, 200241, China.
Nanoscale. 2024 Oct 3;16(38):17926-17933. doi: 10.1039/d4nr01874e.
Exploring highly sensitive flexible electronic skins (e-skins) that can mimic the tactile and pain perception of human skin is an important prerequisite for achieving biomimetic robots and intelligent prosthetics. However, it is still difficult to realize both touch and pain sensing using a single pressure sensor. Herein, a novel flexible capacitive pressure sensor that can distinguish noxious pressure stimuli is proposed for detecting touch and pain, which is composed of a porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) skeleton and a sodium alginate (SA) hydrogel core. The sensor employs two different working mechanisms depending on the range of external pressure, determining the mechanism of operation for transducing the sense of touch or pain. Such a unique structural design plays a crucial role in enhancing pain perception, leading to maximum sensitivity (14.25 kPa) in a large pressure regime (up to 400 kPa) and an adjustable pressure threshold. Moreover, the sensor also exhibits a fast response (45 ms) and recovery speed (70 ms), ensuring a sufficiently fast response to noxious pressure stimuli. Finally, we demonstrate the capabilities of a robotic hand based on the pressure sensor for precisely detecting both touch and pain, which shows great promise in developing intelligent robots and prosthetic limbs to prevent possible damage under external noxious stimuli.
探索能够模拟人类皮肤触觉和疼痛感知的高灵敏度柔性电子皮肤（e-skins）是实现仿生机器人和智能假肢的重要前提。然而，使用单个压力传感器同时实现触觉和疼痛感知仍然具有挑战性。本文提出了一种新型的柔性电容压力传感器，可用于检测触摸和疼痛，它由多孔聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）骨架和海藻酸钠（SA）水凝胶芯组成。该传感器根据外部压力范围采用两种不同的工作机制，确定了触觉或疼痛感知的转换机制。这种独特的结构设计对于增强疼痛感知起着至关重要的作用，在大压力范围内（高达 400 kPa）实现了最大灵敏度（14.25 kPa）和可调压力阈值。此外，该传感器还具有快速的响应（45 ms）和恢复速度（70 ms），能够对有害压力刺激做出足够快的响应。最后，我们展示了基于压力传感器的机器人手的功能，可精确检测触摸和疼痛，这为开发智能机器人和假肢以防止外部有害刺激下的潜在损伤提供了巨大的潜力。
