Synergistic material-structural engineering for preparing high-performance, flexible bending strain sensors via electrohydrodynamic direct writing

Flexible bending strain sensors emerge as promising candidates for wearable health monitoring and human-machine interaction, owing to their high stability and sensitivity. However, a critical trade-off between high sensitivity and reliable large-angle sensing capability persists as a key bottleneck, severely hindering their practical implementation. In this study, a synergistic material-structural engineering strategy is proposed to enhance the bend-sensing performance. Specifically, two core components of this strategy involve an in-house synthesized carbon-based conductive particulate ink with favorable printability and a rationally designed sensing layer structure. By integrating the two components via electrohydrodynamic printing technology, we successfully fabricated highly robust flexible bending strain sensors. The resulting sensors exhibit exceptional electromechanical responsiveness to bending deformation, including a wide operating range (10°–150°), high sensitivity (GF = 50.74), rapid response, low hysteresis, and excellent long-term stability. Practically, they can accurately capture diverse physiological signals, ranging from subtle carotid artery pulses to large elbow flexion. Furthermore, a wearable gesture recognition system, incorporating a printed flexible bending strain sensor array, was developed to enable precise gesture recognition, thereby realizing virtual flight control of an unmanned aerial vehicle. These results indicate that the proposed printed sensor provides a promising approach to the sensitivity-angle trade-off, thereby facilitating the practical implementation of flexible electronics in human-machine interaction.