A flexible silver-nanoparticle/polyacrylonitrile biomimetic strain sensor by patterned UV reduction for artificial intelligence flexible electronics

Abstract

Biological receptors play an important perception role for arthropods in nature, and also inspire the scientific community to explore new ways for artificially sensing subtle changes. However, the rapid and high-precision manufacturing of highly sensitive artificial receptors and sensor systems still presents a challenge. Inspired by an arthropod, we developed a silver-nanoparticle/polyacrylonitrile biomimetic strain sensor (SPBSS) by an ultraviolet (UV) induced in situ reduction strategy for the continuous recording of multi-scenario subtle mechanical signals. The SPBSS has a double-layer architecture consisting of a flexible polyacrylonitrile substrate and a silver-nanoparticle functional layer with a nanocrack geometric structure, yielding a high gauge factor (GF, 30.77) in a wide range (up to 75% strain). Using the multichannel SPBSS sensory system, we achieved high precision perception and remote instruction mapping, including subtle vibration location, wearable motion monitoring, and wireless control of devices. Moreover, assisted by artificial intelligence (AI), the proposed sensory system demonstrates a high precision for continuous recognition of both steady-state gestures (SSGs) and dynamic gestures (DGs) (with respective accuracies reaching 98.49% and 93.33%), thereby illustrating the enormous potential of the SPBSS in long-range control, vibration detection, human–machine interface (HMI), and disability assistance.