An Easy-to-Install Textile Bending Sensor with High Sensitivity, Linearity, and Multidirection Direction Capability

AbstractThis study develops a full‐textile triboelectric bending sensor using an elastic conductive filament and a textile fabric as a tribopair, separated by two short spacer filaments between them. Bending triggers a triboelectric conversion. Such a sensor device can report bending angles in real time, with high sensitivity (0.0611 V deg−1) and linearity (goodness of fit above 0.986). By integrating multiple devices at the exact location, the sensor assembly can detect bending in different directions. This sensor device can be directly prepared on clothes, just using the clothes as one of the tribocomponents, and the preparation is simple, simply sewing the conductive filament to the targeted location on the clothes. The presence of sensors has little effect on the air permeability and fabric softness. In addition, the device is washable and can be used for multiple cycles without losing sensing ability. As a demonstration, the sensor is directly made on gloves and elbow pads to detect the finger bending and elbow joint movements successfully. Moreover, a two‐channel bending sensor is attached to the human wrist to report wrist bending direction. Such a simple sensor design has great potential to develop low‐cost, flexible, wearable bending devices for various applications.