Graphene Aerogel-Based Flexible Pressure Sensor for Physiological Signal Detection and Human–Machine Interaction

Despite extensive development of flexible pressure sensors, it is still difficult for them to simultaneously achieve high precision and a large response to subtle pressures. To address these challenges, this work demonstrates a flexible pressure sensing platform that features the reduced graphene oxide aerogel sandwiched between a polydimethylsiloxane encapsulation layer and a thin polyimide film with interdigital electrodes. The resulting pressure sensor exhibits a high sensitivity of 698.96 kPa^-1 and a low limit of detection (~ 1 Pa), and outstanding stability over 20,000 loading/unloading cycles. Besides monitoring various physiological signals and human motions, the flexible pressure sensors can be configured into an array layout as a smart artificial electronic skin to recognize the spatial pressure distribution. The flexible pressure sensor can also be integrated with signal processing and wireless communication modules as a teleoperation system for gesture recognition, force feedback control, and kitchen food recognition, highlighting future potential toward smart robotics and human-machine interfaces.