Coral bionic e-skin for motion monitoring and intelligent recognition of underwater communication commands assisted by deep learning

Continuous and dependable underwater motion monitoring and communication are crucial for ensuring the safety of swimming, divers and underwater workers. We have developed a coral-inspired piezoresistive electronic skin (Melamine sponge-poly(pyrrole)-polydimethylsiloxane, MS-ppy-PDMS e-skin) for motion monitoring and underwater communication. The microstructure of the coral-like poly(pyrrole) and the PDMS acting as “limestone” make MS-ppy-PDMS e-skin superhydrophobic, stable (up to 80,000 cycles and acid and alkali resistance), and sensitive over a wide pressure sensing range (1–2,000 kPa). Moreover, MS-ppy-PDMS e-skin exhibits remarkable breathability, photothermal antibacterial efficacy, and biocompatibility, thereby increasing the comfort of wear while maintaining its outstanding sensing functionality. MS-ppy-PDMS e-skin exhibited dependable electrical signals output in motion monitoring tests on land and underwater. Most crucially, the combination of underwater communication commands captured by MS-ppy-PDMS e-skin with a multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network allows for rapid and precise analysis and recognition, achieving a 99.38% accuracy rate in identifying underwater communication commands. This enables the realization of intelligent perception function, and is expected to further advance the development of human brain-like cognitive systems. Overall, the coral bionic MS-ppy-PDMS e-skin demonstrates tremendous application potential in the fields of motion monitoring and underwater communication.