Recent Progress on Flexible Self-Powered Tactile Sensing Platforms for Health Monitoring and Robotics

Over the past decades, tactile sensing technology has made significant advances in the fields of health monitoring and robotics. Compared to conventional sensors, self-powered tactile sensors do not require an external power source to drive, which makes the entire system more flexible and lightweight. Therefore, they are excellent candidates for mimicking the tactile perception functions for wearable health monitoring and ideal electronic skin (e-skin) for intelligent robots. Herein, the working principles, materials, and device fabrication strategies of various self-powered tactile sensing platforms are introduced first. Then their applications in health monitoring and robotics are presented. Finally, the future prospects of self-powered tactile sensing systems are discussed. Self-powered tactile sensors have great potential applications in physiological signal monitoring, human prosthesis, and artificial intelligence. The latest research progress on self-powered tactile sensing platforms is comprehensively introduced and discussed. Meanwhile, their applications in health monitoring and robotics are reviewed. Finally, future perspectives of the self-powered tactile sensing platforms are discussed. image