ENGINEERING ALL-TEXTILE PIEZORESISTIVE SENSORS BY PROGRAMMING STITCHING GEOMETRY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63456/tsrj-2-1-35Keywords:
Textile sensors, stitching design, encoded sewing, wearable electronicsAbstract
Textile-based piezoresistive sensors are highly desirable for wearable health monitoring, soft robotics, and human-machine interfaces due to their inherent conformability, breathability, and skin friendliness. However, the complex fabrication processes and limited scalability of current textile sensors hinder their practical use, and customizing such sensors remains challenging owing to their intricate geometry-electromechanical coupling and demanding requirements for manufacturing. Herein, we report a simple sewing-based strategy that uses stitch architecture and sewing geometry as active design parameters to tailor the electromechanical response of textile piezoresistive sensors. Systematic tuning of stitch-related geometric variables reveals the structure-property relationships that govern electrical resistance evolution, enabling programmable sensitivity, dynamic behavior, and operating pressure range through a textile-compatible, scalable fabrication process. Guided by this understanding, we fabricated an optimized stitched sensor with high sensitivity (3.4 % kPa-1), fast response (40ms) and recovery (20ms), low hysteresis (< 3%), and stable cycling performance. The programming stitch strategy offers a low-cost and manufacturing-ready route toward textile sensors with tunable electromechanical characteristics, potentially expanding their use in wearable systems and soft robotic applications.
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Copyright (c) 2026 ZEWEN ZHAO, XINRU LI, XUZHONG SU, FENGXIN SUN (Author)
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