Recent development of flexible force sensors with multiple environmental adaptations

After decades of development, flexible force sensors (FFS) with excellent performance have been widely used in health monitoring, sport detection, soft robotics, electronic skin, human-machine interface. Researchers have concentrated on new materials and sophisticated structures for better performance and few have reported on functionality. The functional flexible force sensors (F-FFSs) will greatly enhance their practicality and is what needs to be considered as FFSs move from the laboratory to daily life. This paper is the first to review the functionalities of FFSs and to describe them, such as harsh environment stability, waterproofing, electromagnetic shielding, self-healing and antibacterial function. F-FFS offers great marginal benefits and will be an important development direction in the future. Finally, some questions and perspectives on the application aspects of FFSs will also be presented.