Flexible sensors have the potential to be seamlessly applied to soft and irregularly shaped surfaces such as the human skin or textile fabrics. This benefits conformability dependant applications including smart tattoos, artificial skins and soft robotics. Consequently, materials and structures for innovative flexible sensors, as well as their integration into systems, continue to be in the spotlight of research. This review outlines the current state of flexible sensor technologies and the impact of material developments on this field. Special attention is given to strain, temperature, chemical, light and electropotential sensors, as well as their respective applications.

In this paper, Low Earth Orbit radiation (LEO), temperature and magnetic field conditions are mimicked to investigate the suitability of flexible InGaZnO transistors for lightweight space wearables. More specifically, the impacts of high energetic electron irradiation with fluences up to e12e-, low operating temperatures down to 78 and magnetic fields up to 11 are investigated. This simulates 278 in LEO. The threshold voltage and mobility of transistors that were exposed to e- irradiation are found to shift by +separate-uncertainty0.09± 0.05 and -separate-uncertainty0.6± 0.52-1-1. Subsequent low temperature exposure resulted in additional shifts of +0.38 and -5.952-1-1 for the same parameters. These values are larger than the ones obtained from non-irradiated reference samples. Conversely, the performance of the devices was observed not to be significantly affected by the magnetic fields. Finally, a Cascode amplifier presenting a voltage gain of 10.3 and a cutoff frequency of 1.2 is demonstrated after the sample had been irradiated, cooled down and exposed to the magnetic fields. If these notions are considered during the systems’ design, these devices can be used to unobtrusively integrate sensor systems into space suits.

One of the most valuable contributions robotics can offer is support to daily human activities, yet rigid robots often fail to comply with safety regulations in the proximity of humans. Soft robotics takes inspiration from living organisms’ ability to adapt to their environment using flexible structures. These systems have to generate mechanical forces and simultaneously sense their environment. We developed a soft gripper with integrated sensing microstructures by monolithically 3D printing the structure. The rubber gripper mimics the versatile sensing and actuation abilities of living organisms. This is done using stereolithographic printing technology, rubber material, and resistive, pressure sensitive EGaIn microchannels. Printed microscale pressure sensing cavities are filled with liquid metal and act as resistive pressure sensors. They imitate human haptic perception and provide a sensitivity of 0.5% kPa ⁻¹ . Simultaneously, a soft-robotic actuator design, which is derived from pneumatic networks, delivers a force of 2.5 N with 16 kPa of actuating pressure and an average efficiency of 0.56 mW kPa ⁻¹ . Monolithically 3D printed systems promise numerous advantages since the compliance matching between multi-modal capillary sensing networks and actuators enables scale production of smart soft manipulators. Potential applications include collaborative manufacturing and medical support systems such as exoskeletons.