A Low-Cost Conductive-Textile Based Multifunctional Flexible Capacitive Sensor for Human Motion Tracking

Flexible capacitive sensors have shown great potential in the field of human motion detection. However, The complexity of the manufacturing process and the singularity of function limit its application. Herein, a flexible capacitive sensor based on conductive textiles is developed for multiple motion tracking tasks, i.e., stretching, pressing, and touching. The proposed sensor is fabricated by silver-fiber conductive fabric and silica gel composite material. The manufacturing process is uncomplicated and low-cost. The principle of the sensor working at three different working modes is also analyzed. Experiments show that the proposed sensor exhibits good performance in different working modes, i.e., 1.32 gauge factor and 0.21 kPa^-1 sensitivity for stretch sensing, 0.06 kPa^-1 sensitivity for pressure sensing, and 0.032 Pa^-1 sensitivity for touch sensing. This study simplifies the manufacturing process of conductive fabric-based sensors with low cost and improved performance. Furthermore, it expands the application scenarios of such capacitive sensors, resulting in significant potential in smart textiles and wearable electronics.