A highly sensitive, self-powered triboelectric auditory sensor for social robotics and hearing aids.

The auditory system is the most efficient and straightforward communication strategy for connecting human beings and robots. Here, we designed a self-powered triboelectric auditory sensor (TAS) for constructing an electronic auditory system and an architecture for an external hearing aid in intelligent robotic applications. Based on newly developed triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) technology, the TAS showed ultrahigh sensitivity (110 millivolts/decibel). A TAS with the broadband response from 100 to 5000 hertz was achieved by designing the annular or sectorial inner boundary architecture with systematic optimization. When incorporated with intelligent robotic devices, TAS demonstrated high-quality music recording and accurate voice recognition for realizing intelligent human-robot interaction. Furthermore, the tunable resonant frequency of TAS was achieved by adjusting the geometric design of inner boundary architecture, which could be used to amplify a specific sound wave naturally. On the basis of this unique property, we propose a hearing aid with the TENG technique, which can simplify the signal processing circuit and reduce the power consuming. This work expresses notable advantages of using TENG technology to build a new generation of auditory systems for meeting the challenges in social robotics.