Hollow Polyaniline Microspheres Decorated Fabric Sensor with Electromagnetic Wave-Absorbing and Multimodal Sensing Toward Human–Machine Interaction

Developing comfortable, protective, and reliable monitoring wearable devices is of great significance for next-generation electronic devices. However, previously reported fabrics have proven inadequate for cross-mechanism sensing integration and electromagnetic wave (EMW) protection. To address these, an electromagnetic wave-absorbing flexible wearable device with multimodal sensing capabilities is fabricated based on cotton fabric through polypyrrole (PPy) in situ growth as well as dip-coating with polyaniline hollow microspheres (PHMs) and amino silane modified polyurethane. It demonstrates excellent electromagnetic wave-absorbing properties (Reflection loss peak: −48.20 dB, Effective absorption bandwidth:4.2 GHz). Remarkably, three sensing units have been all integrated by a multimodal sensing principle (strain, temperature, and triboelectric nanogenerator) in an all-in-one structural configuration. The motion sensing unit shows quick response (225 ms) and recovery (285 ms) times with high sensitivity (Gage factor ≈9.2). The temperature sensing unit has a sensitivity of 0.59% K −1 . The self-powered tactile sensing unit exhibits high output voltage (41 V), maximum instantaneous power density (1.9 W m −2 ), and detects touching incentive within 0.3 s. Smart human–machine interaction is demonstrated in applications like morse code, temperature, and touching detection. This study serves as a proof-of-concept for new smart textiles, showcasing potential for integrated flexible wearable devices, artificial intelligence, and human–machine interactions.