Porous nylon with electro-active dopants as flexible sensors and actuators

This paper presents rapid fabrication process and characterization of porous nylon with electro-active dopants for the applications of flexible tactile sensor array, moisture sensor, and actuator. Porous nylon was used as the matrix integrated on a flexible copper-PI film, which provided flexible mechanical properties. Inside the matrix, polypyrrole was electrochemically deposited on the pre-defined interdigitated copper electrodes and acted as conductive dopant. The electro-mechanical characteristics of the fabricated sensors for different applications were measured. The deformation of the electro-active actuator was simulated.