Progress in conductive polymer composites for real-time human motion monitoring and biomechanical sensing

Abstract

Conductive soft materials are essential for next-generation wearable interfaces because they combine electrical functionality, mechanical compliance, and scalable fabrication. This review analyzes conductive polymer composites for real-time motion monitoring and biomechanical sensing through an application-aware framework that links polymer hosts, conductive phases, interfacial chemistry, multiscale architecture, signal transduction, and deployment context. The discussion distinguishes tensile strain tracking, pressure mapping, iontronic load sensing, electrophysiological readout, rehabilitation feedback, and intelligent human-machine interaction, because each task prioritizes different combinations of working range, sensitivity, linearity, hysteresis, drift, comfort, and manufacturability. Carbon networks, MXenes, metallic nanostructures, PEDOT:PSS, PANI, PPy, hydrogels, organogels, and textile fibers are compared not as isolated materials but as task-specific platforms. Particular attention is given to fiber preparation, filler-matrix degradation, electrical-double-layer mechanics, multimodal decoupling, electrochemical benchmarking, scalable processing, and lifecycle sustainability. The review concludes that progress in this field depends less on maximizing a single headline metric and more on validating fit-for-purpose composite architectures under realistic mechanical, environmental, and biointerface conditions.