Skin force sensor using piezoresistive PEDOT:PSS with arabitol on flexible PDMS

In this paper, a flexible conducting polymer based force sensor array has been developed. A conducting polymer, namely poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) with additive arabitol, was utilized as the piezoresistive layer on a flexible polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate owing to its high conductivity and stretchability. A simplified strain sensor has been developed to demonstrate the properties of the arabitol-PEDOT:PSS. Suitable curing conditions and arabitol concentration have been established with design of experiment. The arabitol-PEDOT:PSS can be stretched up to 20% and it shows a significant gauge factor of 11.5. A flexible interdigital force sensor array has been developed to demonstrate the effectiveness of arabitol-PEDOT:PSS on PDMS as a force sensor.