Highly sensitive and durable structured fibre sensors for low-pressure measurement in smart skin

Abstract

Precise measurements of low pressure are highly necessary for many applications. This study developed novel structured fibre sensors embedded in silicone, forming smart skin with high sensitivity, high durability, and good immunity to crosstalk for precise measurement of pressure below 10 kPa. The transduction principle is that an applied pressure leads to bending and stretching of silicone and optical fibre over a purposely made groove and induces the axial strain in the gratings. The fabricated sensor showed high pressure sensitivity up to 26.8 pm/kPa and experienced over 1,000,000 cycles compression without obvious variation. A theoretical model of the sensor was presented and verified to have excellent agreement with experimental results. The prototype of smart leg mannequin and wrist pulse measurements indicated that such optical sensors can precisely measure low-pressure and can easily be integrated for smart skins for mapping low pressure on three-dimensional surfaces.