Multistage Microstructured Ionic Skin for Real-Time Vital Signs Monitoring and Human-Machine Interaction

Abstract

Skin-like electronics research aiming to mimic even surpass human-like specific tactile cognition by operating perception-to-cognition-to-feedback of stimulus to build intelligent cognition systems for certain imperceptible or inappreciable signals was so attractive. Herein, we constructed an all-in-one tri-modal pressure sensing wearable device to address the issue of power supply by integrating multistage microstructured ionic skin (MM i-skin) and thermoelectric self-power staffs, which exhibits high sensitivity simultaneously. The MM i-skin with multi-stage “interlocked” configurations achieved precise recognition of subtle signals, where the sensitivity reached up to 3.95 kPa⁻¹, as well as response time of 46 ms, cyclic stability (over 1500 cycles), a wide detection range of 0–200 kPa. Furthermore, we developed the thermoelectricity nanogenerator, piezoelectricity nanogenerator, and piezocapacitive sensing as an integrated tri-modal pressure sensing, denoted as P-iskin, T-iskin, and C-iskin, respectively. This multifunctional ionic skin enables real-time monitoring of weak body signals, rehab guidance, and robotic motion recognition, demonstrating potential for Internet of things (IoT) applications involving the artificial intelligence-motivated sapiential healthcare Internet (SHI) and widely distributed human-machine interaction (HMI).