Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Fan Chen, Xuyi Li, Guoyi Liu, Jizhong Zhao, Li Zhao, Yifang Shi, Yuxia Shi, Zijie Xu, Wenxi Guo, Yufei Liu
Summary: A technique combining ink-jet printing and electrodeposition is introduced to fabricate pattern electrodes on silk fibroin and polyurethane composite films. The addition of polyurethane improves the chemical properties of silk fibroin while maintaining its permeability and biocompatibility. Different pattern electrodes are successfully printed using ink-jet printing technology, and a layer of nickel is electrodeposited to protect and enhance the conductivity of the electrodes. This technique is beneficial for the manufacture of next-generation in vivo/vitro bioelectronic devices.
ADVANCED MATERIALS TECHNOLOGIES
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Haoran Pei, Jingjing Jing, Yinghong Chen, Jiajun Guo, Ning Chen
Summary: In this study, self-poled high-performance piezoelectric nanogenerators (PENGs) were successfully fabricated through 3D printing by incorporating oriented ionic salt-montmorillonite (IS-MMT) co-fillers into a poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) matrix. Additionally, a self-adaptive conformal PENG based on auxetic metamaterial was developed, showing beyond the practicability of traditional 2D PENGs. The tailored 3D printed cell with serpentine geometries of metamaterial exhibited high sensitivity to structure variation, making it beneficial for regulating piezoelectric output.
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Andrew Closson, Haley Richards, Zhe Xu, Congran Jin, Lin Dong, John X. J. Zhang
Summary: A method of printing conductive polymers onto P(VDF-TrFE) nanofibers was introduced for creating all-polymer piezoelectric devices. The devices showed sensitivity to impact and bending, and were able to detect breathing and pulse rate when placed on the carotid and radial arteries. This approach allows for flexible piezoelectric sensing in an array format, with applications in foot movement sensing.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL
(2021)
Review
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Xiaoqian Wan, Honglian Cong, Gaoming Jiang, Xinhua Liang, Lu Liu, Haijun He
Summary: Textiles are becoming an ideal platform for next-generation sensing due to their breathability, softness, and structural elasticity. This paper mainly reviews the development of PVDF-based textiles in flexible piezoelectric sensors, which are widely used in wearable applications for long-term sensing and monitoring.
ACS APPLIED NANO MATERIALS
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
M. Arjun Hari, Subash Cherumannil Karumuthil, Lintu Rajan
Summary: This comparative analysis explores the performance improvement of PVDF-based piezoelectric tactile sensors through the addition of different nanofillers. Nanoparticles such as zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, and nanosilica were incorporated into PVDF composites to enhance their electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. The results showed that the addition of nanofillers led to faster crystallization and stronger interfacial interactions, resulting in the formation of piezoelectric PVDF composites with enriched sensitivity. The fabricated sensors exhibited improved piezoelectric performance, with zinc oxide-incorporated devices showing the highest observed sensitivity of 103 mV/N. Tactile sensors based on these nanocomposites were developed using cost-effective fabrication mechanisms for potential use in prosthetic devices.
SENSORS AND ACTUATORS A-PHYSICAL
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Analytical
Alec Ikei, James Wissman, Kaushik Sampath, Gregory Yesner, Syed N. Qadri
Summary: PVDF-TrFE has shown to be a more promising material choice than PVDF in the field of functional 3D printing, due to its ability to achieve high levels of piezoelectric performance. This study demonstrates an in situ 3D printing and poling method for PVDF-TrFE, paving the way for the development of pressure sensors with higher sensitivity and accuracy.
Article
Polymer Science
Rizwan Ul Hassan, Shaheer Mohiuddin Khalil, Saeed Ahmed Khan, Shahzaib Ali, Joonkyeong Moon, Dae-Hyun Cho, Doyoung Byun
Summary: In the field of soft electronics, high-resolution and transparent structures based on various flexible materials constructed via various printing techniques are gaining attention. The electrohydrodynamic (EHD) jet printing technique allows for the fabrication of high-resolution, transparent, and flexible strain sensors. By investigating the effects of voltage, flow rate, nozzle distance, and speed, researchers have achieved a high-resolution printed mesh structure with a gauge factor significantly increased. The plasma treatment enhances adhesion and stability, making this simple printing technique suitable for high-resolution microchannels, 3D printing, and electronic devices.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Yasmin Mohamed Yousry, Voon-Kean Wong, Rong Ji, Yunjie Chen, Shuting Chen, Xiuying Zhang, David Boon Kiang Lim, Lei Shen, Kui Yao
Summary: In this study, conformable shear mode ultrasonic transducers made of flexible piezoelectric PLLA fibers were designed and evaluated for underwater structural health monitoring applications. The transducers exhibited consistent sensitivity in detecting defects in both liquid and air. The shear mode in PLLA fibers, which originates from the crystal structure, does not require electrical poling and is resistant to aging.
ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
(2023)
Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Xingang Liu, Yinghao Shang, Jihai Zhang, Chuhong Zhang
Summary: Ionic liquid-assisted FDM technology enables direct printing of high electroactive beta-phase PVDF piezoelectric devices, promoting the formation of beta crystals and enhancing the piezoelectric output of PVDF devices. The PVDF devices printed by FDM have a beta crystal content as high as 98.3%, self-polarization characteristics, and do not require additional poling steps.
ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
(2021)
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Qifan Ding, Huyue Chen, Jiahao Wu, Tianxiang Zheng, Wen-Ming Zhang, Lei Shao
Summary: In this paper, a molding-free full-printing method for flexible tactile sensors was proposed and verified. The method offers a fast, low-cost, and reliable way to fabricate sensors with performance comparable or even better than those made with slow and expensive molding processes. The sensors show high sensitivity for low pressures and can detect a wide pressure range. The method also allows for the fabrication of diverse flexible devices.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL
(2022)
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Chao Ma, Meng Wang, Pierre Claver Uzabakiriho, Gang Zhao
Summary: A high-performance, safe, comfortable, waterproof, breathable, economical, and reliable wearable strain sensor was developed through mature electrospinning and screen-printing technology. The sensor exhibits excellent repeatability and stability, remarkable sensitivity, a broad working strain range, and an ultrafast response time. Its mechanical properties are similar to natural skin and it has unmatched biofriendliness.
ADVANCED MATERIALS TECHNOLOGIES
(2022)
Review
Crystallography
Fangxi Qi, Lei Xu, Yin He, Han Yan, Hao Liu
Summary: This paper introduces the advantages of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) materials in terms of reliability and flexibility, and the research progress of flexible piezoelectric sensors based on PVDF materials.
CRYSTAL RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Metallurgy & Metallurgical Engineering
Hong Yang, Lian-zhong Zhao, Yan Zhang, Hang Luo, Ri-chu Wang, Dou Zhang, Xiao-feng Wang
Summary: In this study, direct ink writing (DIW) was used to prepare polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) film. The rheological properties of inks were studied, and the influence of process parameters on material properties was investigated using various testing methods. The results showed that the PVDF film prepared with specific printing parameters had a significantly improved β-phase content compared to film prepared by solution casting. The high β-phase content enhanced the electrical properties and piezoelectric performance of the PVDF film, making it suitable for small deformation monitoring.
JOURNAL OF CENTRAL SOUTH UNIVERSITY
(2023)
Article
Biophysics
Mehran Abbasi Shirsavar, Mehrnoosh Taghavimehr, Lionel J. Ouedraogo, Mojan Javaheripi, Nicole N. Hashemi, Farinaz Koushanfar, Reza Montazami
Summary: This study investigates the impact of key parameters on the conductivity of E-jet printed circuits and develops a machine learning model using collected experimental data to predict the characteristics of the printed circuits. Results show that the K-NN model and random forest are the best methods for classifying electrode conductivity.
BIOSENSORS & BIOELECTRONICS
(2022)
Article
Biophysics
Mehran Abbasi Shirsavar, Mehrnoosh Taghavimehr, Lionel J. Ouedraogo, Mojan Javaheripi, Nicole N. Hashemi, Farinaz Koushanfar, Reza Montazami
Summary: The study focused on the electrical conductivity of E-jet printed circuits as a function of key printing parameters, using a machine learning algorithm to establish models capable of predicting the characteristics of the printed circuits in real-time. Random forest and K-NN model (k = 10) were identified as the best methods for classifying the conductivity of electrodes.
BIOSENSORS & BIOELECTRONICS
(2022)
Article
Computer Science, Information Systems
Hamoud Younes, Ali Ibrahim, Mostafa Rizk, Maurizio Valle
Summary: This paper presents the first FPGA implementation of an approximate tensorial Support Vector Machine classifier using High-Level Synthesis, with a touch modality classification framework to validate its effectiveness. Compared to exact implementations, the proposed approach achieves up to 49% reduction in power consumption, 3.2x speedup, 40% reduction in hardware resources, and 82% less energy consumption while maintaining an accuracy loss of less than 5% when classifying input touch data.
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Mohamad Alameh, Yahya Abbass, Ali Ibrahim, Gabriele Moser, Maurizio Valle
Summary: This paper explores the time series characteristics of RNNs for touch modality classification, proposing efficient models to capture long-term dependencies in data and presenting hardware-friendly approaches that reduce computational and memory requirements. The implemented models show higher classification accuracy and scalability, with reduced hardware complexity and improved performance compared to state-of-the-art solutions on the same benchmark dataset.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Ilaria Fratelli, Andrea Ciavatti, Enrico Zanazzi, Laura Basirico, Massimo Chiari, Laura Fabbri, John E. Anthony, Alberto Quaranta, Beatrice Fraboni
Summary: The study demonstrates that flexible organic detectors based on thin films can directly detect 5-MeV protons and convert their energy into electrical current for measurement. These sensors can measure the dose of protons in real time and also in integration mode, with high sensitivity and a low limit of detection. The detectors proposed in this study show potential for use as proton dosimeters in various fields, including medical proton therapy.
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Christian Gianoglio, Edoardo Ragusa, Paolo Gastaldo, Maurizio Valle
Summary: This paper proposes a learning strategy based on the out-of-samples technique to find the configurations of the elaboration unit and the parameters of the predictor that best balance the generalization accuracy and the computational cost. The study conducted on touch modalities classification problem shows that SLFNNs achieve the best solution in terms of accuracy, outperforming existing algorithms, while also considering the trade-off between generalization performance and computational cost.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL
(2022)
Article
Engineering, Biomedical
Yahya Abbass, Moustafa Saleh, Strahinja Dosen, Maurizio Valle
Summary: The novel system integrates advanced multipoint sensing and stimulation technology to successfully convey tactile information to the user. Through experimental testing, users were able to accurately recognize static and dynamic tactile patterns. This system is an important step towards a new generation of tactile feedback interfaces.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS
(2021)
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Hamoud Younes, Ali Ibrahim, Mostafa Rizk, Maurizio Valle
Summary: The novel hardware architecture of the Tensorial Support Vector Machine based on Shallow Neural Networks shows significant advantages in SVD computation, offering faster computations and reduced hardware resources and power consumption.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS I-REGULAR PAPERS
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Analytical
Ammar Mohanna, Christian Gianoglio, Ali Rizik, Maurizio Valle
Summary: In this paper, a novel method based on Convolutional Neural Networks is proposed to address the radar shadow effect issue in FMCW radars, achieving a test accuracy of 92%.
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Ferdinand Ledee, Andrea Ciavatti, Matteo Verdi, Laura Basirico, Beatrice Fraboni
Summary: 2D layered hybrid perovskites, such as PEA(2)PbBr(4), have shown promising results as active layers in solid-state ionizing radiation direct detectors, demonstrating excellent detection performance and stable response.
ADVANCED OPTICAL MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Computer Science, Information Systems
Mario Osta, Ali Ibrahim, Maurizio Valle
Summary: This paper demonstrates the feasibility and efficiency of approximate computing techniques (ACTs) in implementing embedded Support Vector Machine (SVM) tensorial kernel circuit in tactile sensing systems. By optimizing the implementation of the multiplier circuit in Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), the performance of embedded SVM in terms of power, area, and delay can be improved. The approximate SVD achieves a significant energy consumption reduction while maintaining a low Mean Relative Error (MRE). The study also evaluates the impact of approximate SVD on classification accuracy and proposes a hybrid evaluation test approach for further optimization.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Luca Possanzini, Laura Basirico, Andrea Ciavatti, Marta Tessarolo, Beatrice Fraboni
Summary: This research introduces the manufacturing process of fully textile perovskite-based X-ray detectors, which achieve high sensitivity values and low detection limits on fabrics, as well as validation of wearable applications and proof of principle for large-area scalability.
ADVANCED MATERIALS INTERFACES
(2022)
Article
Computer Science, Information Systems
Guido Di Patrizio Stanchieri, Moustafa Saleh, Andrea De Marcellis, Ali Ibrahim, Marco Faccio, Maurizio Valle, Elia Palange
Summary: In this paper, a tactile sensory feedback system for prosthetic applications based on an optical communication link is proposed and validated. The system utilizes a low-power and wide transmission bandwidth optical link, making it suitable for various tactile sensors. Experimental tests on a system prototype show the functionality and real-time operation capabilities of the proposed system, with a communication energy consumption of 50 pJ/bit.
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Sabrina Calvi, Laura Basirico, Sara M. Carturan, Ilaria Fratelli, Antonio Valletta, Alberto Aloisio, Stefania De Rosa, Felix Pino, Marcello Campajola, Andrea Ciavatti, Luca Tortora, Matteo Rapisarda, Sandra Moretto, Matteo Verdi, Stefano Bertoldo, Olivia Cesarini, Paolo Di Meo, Massimo Chiari, Francesco Tommasino, Ettore Sarnelli, Luigi Mariucci, Paolo Branchini, Alberto Quaranta, Beatrice Fraboni
Summary: This article presents a flexible, fully organic detector for proton beams. The detector operates in the indirect mode and consists of a polysiloxane-based scintillating layer coupled to an organic phototransistor. It demonstrates mechanical flexibility and low power operation with a limit of detection of 0.026 Gy min(-1). A kinetic model is proposed to accurately reproduce the dynamic response of the device under irradiation. This proton detector shows promise as a real-time particle detection tool for various applications, including experimental scientific research and theranostics.
NPJ FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Christian Gianoglio, Edoardo Ragusa, Paolo Gastaldo, Maurizio Valle
Summary: This letter introduces a neural architecture search method to optimize tactile elaboration systems, considering the computational cost of the entire pipeline including data preprocessing and a convolutional neural network (CNN) model for information extraction. The strategy is applied to train standard 1-D CNNs and binary CNNs on a three-class touch modality classification dataset. Experimental results show that systems based on standard CNNs outperform state-of-the-art techniques in terms of accuracy and computational cost, while those based on binary CNNs further reduce computational cost with a slight accuracy drop.
IEEE SENSORS LETTERS
(2023)
Proceedings Paper
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
Moustafa Saleh, Yahya Abbass, Maurizio Valle
Summary: This paper proposes a lightweight implementation of preprocessing method for a multichannel tactile sensing system. The experimental results on hardware analysis demonstrate the feasibility of this method. It enhances the extraction of high-bandwidth information and is suitable for time and hardware-constrained applications.
ADVANCES IN SYSTEM-INTEGRATED INTELLIGENCE, SYSINT 2022
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Hamoud Younes, Ali Ibrahim, Mostafa Rizk, Maurizio Valle
Summary: K-Nearest Neighbor (kNN) is an efficient algorithm used in various applications, and the proposed hardware accelerator for kNN shows significant improvements in energy consumption and speed compared to state-of-the-art implementations. Approximate Computing Techniques (ACTs) further enhance the proposed architecture, accelerating the classification process and reducing energy consumption.
IEEE OPEN JOURNAL OF CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS
(2021)
