Smart gloves with strain/pressure dual-mode tactile sensor for UAV flight control

• Innovative Dual-Mode Sensing Technology with Exceptional Performance: This study presents a novel electronic skin (TMES) that integrates pressure and strain sensing using a biomimetic PDMS microcone structure coupled with a conductive MWCNT network. The TMES demonstrates impressive strain sensitivity of 630 (strain range of 1 ∼ 170 %) and pressure sensitivity of −0.14004 kPa −1 (pressure range of 0 ∼ 2.5 kPa). • Superior Durability and Wearability: The TMES exhibits stable performance after more than 10,000 mechanical loading cycles, indicating its long-term reliability and suitability for wearable applications. • Smart Glove for UAV Gesture-Based Control: A smart glove equipped with four TMES sensors is proposed for gesture-based control of UAV flight, which facilitates disaster rescue operations and enables item delivery across multiple floors by sending signals to control UAV actions. • Enhancing Human-Machine Interaction: This work significantly advances the field of human–machine interaction by introducing a robust, skin-friendly interface that bridges wearable electronics with UAVs, providing valuable insights into wearable devices and offers commercial potential for applications in the low-altitude economy. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight control enables precise navigation and obstacle avoidance in harsh weather conditions or challenging terrains, whereas conventional control methods mainly rely on external devices with operation complexity, limited flexibility and slower response time. This paper develops a sensing glove integrated with ultra-sensitive dual-mode e-skin for finger compression-based UAV flight control, where any of the pressure, strain, or their combinations can correspond to diverse signals in real time without signal overlap. The proposed polyurethane (TPU)/multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) electronic skin, termed TMES, features a flexible, biomimetic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microcones interlocked with a microscale cracked TPU/MWCNT conductive network, exhibiting exceptional sensitivity in its positive resistance response to strain (630 at 70 %) and negative resistance response to pressure (−0.14004 kPa −1 in the 0–2.5 kPa range), as well as long-term stable working performance (>10,000 cycles). Extensive tests have confirmed that TMES is capable of accurately distinguishing a series of precise physiological signals and joint movements such as pulse, heartbeat, breathing and maintain reliable performance among multiple activities including bending, stretching, and pressing. The wireless sensing glove equipped with TMES has been implemented successfully for practical missions in real-world scenarios comprising disaster rescue and high-rise delivery.