A Soft Ionic Sensor for Simultaneous Pressure and Strain Measurements

Soft ionic sensing represents a promising technology to develop low-cost, biocompatible sensors that can be used to provide exteroception and interoception capabilities to soft robotic devices, or in wearable applications to measure joint motion and forces on the body. In this paper, we present the design, fabrication, and testing of an ionic soft sensor based on a NaC1 solution that can measure pressure and strain independently. The proposed system uses a singular output to simultaneously measure strain and pressure via the modification of the input signal frequency and amplitude, effectively decoupling the detection of forces along different axes and allowing the user to track these inputs in real-time.