A bio-inspired energy-resilient wireless skin

Soft and conformal wearable wireless systems are promising for healthcare, ambient Internet-of-Things and mission-critical applications, but persistent operation is hindered by mechanical deformation and fluctuating energy availability. Existing wearable systems are typically confined to fixed communication modes, relying on either energy-intensive active radios or low-power but functionally limited passive schemes. Here we present a bio-inspired octopus-like energy-resilient wireless skin (ERWS) with adaptive active–passive communication. The ERWS uses active communication for multimodal sensing and localization when energy is sufficient and switches to low-power backscatter sensing and data transmission when energy is limited. A time–frequency–space co-design enables this operation: undervoltage-lockout-based energy management controls temporal mode switching; dual-band operation assigns Bluetooth communication and radio-frequency (RF) energy harvesting to 2.4 GHz and wake-up/backscatter communication to 915 MHz; and a flexible optically transparent antenna, flexible solar cell and central functional island are vertically integrated. An island–bridge architecture mechanically decouples RF-sensitive components from stretchable interconnects, preserving electromagnetic performance under deformation. Experiments demonstrate autonomous mode switching, reliable active and passive communication, hybrid solar/RF energy harvesting, deformation tolerance and multimodal physiological monitoring, establishing the ERWS as an energy-resilient wearable platform for persistent operation under dynamic conditions.