Recent progress in self-powered multifunctional e-skin for advanced applications

Abstract

Electronic skin (e-skin), new generation of flexible wearable electronic devices, has characteristics including flexibility, thinness, biocompatibility with broad application prospects, and a crucial place in future wearable electronics. With the increasing demand for wearable sensor systems, the realization of multifunctional e-skin with low power consumption or even autonomous energy is urgently needed. The latest progress of multifunctional self-powered e-skin for applications in physiological health, human–machine interaction (HMI), virtual reality (VR), and artificial intelligence (AI) is presented here. Various energy conversion effects for the driving energy problem of multifunctional e-skin are summarized. An overview of various types of self-powered e-skins, including single-effect e-skins and multifunctional coupling-effects e-skin systems is provided, where the aspects of material preparation, device assembly, and output signal analysis of the self-powered multifunctional e-skin are described. In the end, the existing problems and prospects in this field are also discussed.