Stretchable Triboelectric–Photonic Smart Skin for Tactile and Gesture Sensing

Abstract Smart skin is expected to be stretchable and tactile for bionic robots as the medium with the ambient environment. Here, a stretchable triboelectric–photonic smart skin (STPS) is reported that enables multidimensional tactile and gesture sensing for a robotic hand. With a grating‐structured metal film as the bioinspired skin stripe, the STPS exhibits a tunable aggregation‐induced emission in a lateral tensile range of 0–160%. Moreover, the STPS can be used as a triboelectric nanogenerator for vertical pressure sensing with a maximum sensitivity of 34 mV Pa −1 . The pressure sensing characteristics can remain stable in different stretching conditions, which demonstrates a synchronous and independent sensing property for external stimuli with great durability. By integrating on a robotic hand as a conformal covering, the STPS shows multidimensional mechanical sensing abilities for external touch and different gestures with joints bending. This work has first demonstrated a triboelectric–photonic coupled multifunctional sensing terminal, which may have great applications in human–machine interaction, soft robots, and artificial intelligence.