New method combines precision printing of stretchable conductive inks with pick-and-place of electronic components to make flexible, wearable sensors

Soft sensors composed of conductive materials that exhibit changes in their electrical conductivity when stretched (which is how they detect movement) are coupled with a programmable microcontroller chip to process those data, as well as a readout device that communicates the data in a form humans can understand.

To achieve this, the researchers combined the printed soft sensors with a digital “pick-and-place process” that applies a modest vacuum through an empty printing nozzle (through which ink is normally dispensed) to pick up electronic components and place them onto the substrate surface in a specific, programmable manner.⁠


Image/video credits: Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering

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