Fully Printed Pressure Sensor Array for Soft Robotics

Skin is one of nature's most remarkable sensory organs, capable of detecting a wide range of inputs while remaining both stretchable and flexible. Inspired by this, we developed a fully additive stretchable pressure sensor array for soft robotics. The array is built up from a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) substrate with a circuit of Ag ink traces providing strain sensing and nodes of carbon for pressure sensing. The system was created fully additively with direct ink writing (DIW) with an eye towards higher throughput methods such as screen printing to be utilized in the future.