A highly stretchable and deformation-insensitive bionic electronic exteroceptive neural sensor for human-machine interfaces

Abstract Bionic integrated sensing devices with numerous distributed electronic elements substantially expand the human’s interactive control capabilities. Several difficulties need to be overcome, including intricate interconnections, complicated structures, and electromagnetic interference/compatibility in signal transmission. In addition, retention of device’s functionalities under high deformation is desired, while it faces huge challenges to achieve stretchability and deformation insensitivity. Herein, a highly stretchable and deformation-insensitive bionic electronic exteroceptive neural sensor is first presented and fabricated from the functional composite of polyester thread coated with carbon nanotubes. The bionic electronic exteroceptive neural sensor features all-in-one bionic multifunctional characteristics, which effectively avoids the use of numerous distributed electronic elements. Importantly, it achieves high stretchability and characterizes unprecedented deformation-insensitive functional property. The properties enable the bionic electronic exteroceptive neural sensor to serve as a wearable device and function continuously without interference even when being greatly stretched (100% strain). Other prominent advantages of the bionic electronic exteroceptive neural sensor are excellent stability (> 15,000 cyclical tests), rapid response (≤ 15 ms), high robustness, geometrically hierarchical sensing, and personalized cuttability. The tremendous potential applications of the bionic electronic exteroceptive neural sensor are demonstrated in the fields of human-machine interactions, information security system, and Internet of things.