Periosteum-inspired lightweight aerogel composite for ultrahigh energy dissipation and dynamic impact perception

Intelligent wearable devices have played a pivotal role in modern life owing to their wide and important applications in health monitoring and human–machine interaction. However, conventional designs ignored the dynamic energy dissipation and sensing performance under mechanical impact scenarios that critically limit their applications in health, sport, and security monitoring. Herein, a periosteum-inspired structural strategy is proposed to construct a lightweight aerogel composite by regulating the spatial distribution of a SSG (shear-stiffening gel) within the outer pores of an ANF/CNT aerogel. The reinforced outer layer provides efficient energy dissipation (90%) and pronounced mechanical strengthening (241.9%) under high strain rates, while maintaining a low density of 0.3 g cm⁻³.The unfilled inner layer ensures sufficient deformable characteristic for ANF/CNT conductive network, enabling efficient detection of impact energies up to 2.7 J and precise differentiation of piezoresistive responses under dynamic impact and bending (linearity: 0.999). The aerogel composite can be further applied in a smart insole, enabling the real-time plantar pressure mapping, accurate detection of abnormal gait, and long-term sensing stability. This work demonstrates an effective design strategy for engineering lightweight wearable devices with superior impact resistance and dynamic sensing.