A Self-Powered Sensor Mimicking Slow- and Fast-Adapting Cutaneous Mechanoreceptors

Abstract

Highly efficient human skin systems transmit fast adaptive (FA) and slow adaptive (SA) pulses selectively or consolidatively to the brain for a variety of external stimuli. The integrated analysis of these signals determines how humans perceive external physical stimuli. Here, a self-powered mechanoreceptor sensor based on an artificial ion-channel system combined with a piezoelectric film is presented, which can simultaneously implement FA and SA pulses like human skin. This device detects stimuli with high sensitivity and broad frequency band without external power. For the feasibility study, various stimuli are measured or detected. Vital signs such as the heart rate and ballistocardiogram can be measured simultaneously in real time. Also, a variety of stimuli such as the mechanical stress, surface roughness, and contact by a moving object can be distinguished and detected. This opens new scientific fields to realize the somatic cutaneous sensor of the real skin. Moreover, this new sensing scheme inspired by natural sensing structures is able to mimic the five senses of living creatures.

Both the slow-adapting and the fast-adapting behavior in human somatosensing are mimicked. For this, an ion-channel system is devised along with an artificial receptor fabricated from a piezoelectric film. The sensing signals are measured without any external power, because the piezoelectric film and ion-channel system are self-powered for sensing, resembling biological sensory systems.

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