Skin‐Mount Textile‐Based Flexible Strain Sensors for Physiotherapy

• Published in: Advanced engineering materials Vol. 26; no. 10
• Main Authors: Javaid, Aqsa, Zulfiqar, Muhammad Hamza, Saleem, Muhammad Shoaib, Khan, Muhammad Atif, Zubair, Muhammad, Massoud, Yehia, Mehmood, Muhammad Qasim
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.05.2024
• Subjects: cotton; flexible; jeans; strain sensors; textile‐based; therapy; wearable
• ISSN: 1438-1656; 1527-2648
• DOI: 10.1002/adem.202301138

Tremendous development in intelligent wearable gadgets creates opportunities for flexible strain sensors. Comfortable and safe flexible strain sensors have high demand in wearable applications and therefore the textile‐based strain sensors are desired. Achieving attributes like easy fabrication, cost‐effectiveness, high sensitivity, good stability, and portability is still a challenge to overcome. In this regard, textile‐based flexible strain sensors, one on jeans fabric and other on cotton fabric, are presented. A conventional interdigitated electrode structure is adopted and sensors are prepared by facile and economical fabrication process. Both sensors own high sensitivity factors, i.e., gauge factor >200 and stability of ≈10 000 cycles. The anticipated works show a linear response R2 = 0.99, low hysteresis <5%, and minimum resolution <7°. The intended sensors are implemented for real‐time application, i.e., the physiotherapy of the knee and neck. The jeans‐fabric‐based sensor is used for knee therapy and the cotton for neck. The daily therapy sessions are recorded and examined. The sensors respond well to the applied strain during therapy sessions, proving to be an outstanding choice for integration into biomedical wearable devices for therapeutic purposes. The proposed sensors can also be auspicious candidates for targeting many other wearable applications. A textile‐based flexible strain sensor of conventional interdigitated electrode structure is made up of copper tape. Sensor cut to the shape of interdigitated electrode structure by passing through cutter plotter and then pasting onto the textile substrate. The proposed sensor is a viable candidate for the field of biomechanics and specifically targets for physiotherapy along with wirelessly connected mobile application for precise monitoring.