A PVDF/Au/PEN Multifunctional Flexible Human-Machine Interface for 2D Position, Force, Hover, Surface Curvature Sensing and Energy Harvesting

Multidimensional sensing with stable detection responsivity and flexible factors is a strong demand for electronic human-machine interfaces, which is, however, suffering difficulty to achieve in a simple structure and low power means by conventional techniques. In this paper, a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)/Au/polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) sandwiched architecture is assembled. By smartly combining ferroelectric and capacitive effects, techniques are developed for 2D position detection (1 mm resolution), force sensing (sensitivity at 0.05N), hover touch recognition and energy harvesting. Furthermore, a capacitive technique is presented for recognizing device curvature, which helps in realizing stable force detection responsivity when the shape of the device changes, potentially advancing human-machine interactivities.