Skin-inspired flexible and printed iontronic sensor enables bimodal sensing of robot skin for machine-learning-assisted object recognition

• Main Authors: He, Qiang, Zhou, Zhongliang, Swe, Mon Myat, Tang, Cindy G., Wang, Yanju, Leong, Wei Lin
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2025
• Subjects: Engineering; Physics; Iontronic devices; Bimodal sensor
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/181941
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Iontronic devices manifest significant promise for versatile pressure-temperature sensing due to their substantial capacitance resulting from the electric double layer effect and the temperature-dependent ion mobility. Here, a skin-inspired printed iontronic bimodal sensor, capable of independently capturing pressure and temperature for robotic electronic skin is proposed. Through the elaborate design of the printable sensor electrodes, the decoupled resistance-capacitance dual measurement mode of the iontronic device is realized, which is used to measure temperature and pressure changes respectively. By leveraging the pressure-independent and temperature-dependent resistance changes of the iontronic film, the pressure-related capacitance value of the iontronic device is temperature compensated, with maximum pressure error of 5.1 % in 0–300 kPa pressure range. A bimodal pressure-temperature sensor array for robot electronic skin is further demonstrated, achieving high-precision temperature sensing and accurate pressure detection during various object manipulation as well as demonstrating a high object recognition accuracy rate of 98.3 %.