Textile‐Based Strain Sensor for Human Motion Detection

TLDR

Human motion analysis relies on real‑time monitoring of body kinematics, and electronic textiles offer a low‑cost, lightweight, flexible alternative to conventional solid‑state sensors. This mini‑review surveys textile‑based strain sensor platforms, covering theoretical principles (resistive, capacitive, piezoelectric), material functionalization, and summarizing e‑textile sensor types for motion analysis. The concluding sections outline future perspectives, challenges, and overall conclusions of the field.

Abstract

Human motion analysis consists of real‐time monitoring and recording of human body's kinematics. It is very essential to track ambulatory and daily‐life human motion, which is crucial for many applications and disciplines. Electronic textiles (e‐textiles) afford a valid alternative to traditional solid‐state sensors due to their merits of low cost, lightweight, flexibility, and feasibility to fit various human bodies. In this mini‐review, textile‐based sensor platforms and human motion analysis are well discussed in Section 1. Second, theoretical principles of textile‐based strain sensors are introduced including resistive, capacitive, and piezoelectrical sensors. Section 3 focuses on various types of textile materials that are functionalized as sensing systems by intrinsic or extrinsic modifications. Section 4 summaries various types of e‐textile‐based strain sensors for human motion analysis. The final two sections mainly present perspectives and challenges, and conclusions, respectively.