School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Published Research Results in Nature Communications with being the Corresponding Unit

Recently, Professor Sun Lining team from School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering of Soochow University and Professor Lee Chengkuo team from Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of National University of Singapore have made important progress in the research of intelligent wearable devices for human-computer interaction, with the research result being published in Nature Communications with the title of “Low cost exoskeleton manipulator using bidirectional triboelectric sensors enhanced multiple degree of freedom sensory system”.

The paper proposes a triboelectric bi-directional sensor as a universal and cost-effective solution to a customized exoskeleton for monitoring all of the movable joints of the human upper limbs with low power consumption.  Differing from the multilayers of special designed grating patterns adopted by other bidirectional triboelectric rotation sensors, this TBD sensor with a switch structure and a basic grating structure can realize the bidirectional sensing for both rotational and linear motions from different joints, including multiple DOFs rotations of the shoulder and twisting of the wrist.  In the meantime, the sensor shows a good performance from low speed of 10?RPM to high speed of 300?RPM, proves the feasibility for different application scenarios. It may benefit the advancements in industrial automation, unmanned shop and warehouse, digital twin, rehabilitation, and training program in the future.

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23020-3