Highly sensitive capacitive pressure sensor with elastic metallized sponge

Abstract

This paper presents a novel capacitive pressure sensor that is capable of making highly accurate measurements at low pressure. Different from the method that many researchers have successfully used to improve the sensitivity of capacitive sensors by using a micro-structured dielectric layer (such as the micro-structured PDMS film), this paper creatively used an elastic metallized sponge (nickel-plated polyurethane sponge) as the elastic porous electrode of the capacitive sensor, so that it can detect very low pressure (such as a 0.2 g soybean). Compared with the traditional capacitive sensor using an insulative polyurethane sponge as the dielectric, the baseline capacitance of the sensor of the same size can increase by 10 times, and it has a better signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, the sensor has good robustness due to the good mechanical properties of the nickel-plated polyurethane sponge. The fabrication process of the sensor is extremely simple, the cost is low, and it can be made into any planar shape. In this paper, we describe the structure, principle and manufacture of the sensor, and present the application on robotic grasping.

Microengineering Pressure Sensor Active Layers for Improved Performance

“…Similar to micropatterned structures, porous layers have also been recently used to structure the electrode. [ 90 ] Using this method, the capacitance change is dependent on the change in contact area between the porous electrode and the dielectric layer.…”

Simultaneous Sensing of Touch and Pressure by Using Highly Elastic e-Fabrics

“…The sensors are evaluated in an overview comparison with other existing works. Our sensors have a sensitivity higher than two studies, (0.283 kPa −1 at 5 kPa) [26] and (121 × 10 −4 kPa −1 at 100 kPa) [48], and lower than two studies (0.007 kPa −1 at 5 kPa) [34,49]. Our sensors also have a lower thickness than those studies, as shown in Figure 8.…”

“…Our sensors also have a lower thickness than those studies, as shown in Figure 8. Due to using the spacer fabric, the sensors also have better breathable properties than the reference samples in two studies [34] (using aluminum foil), and [48] (using silicone layers). The spacer layers by the PET yarns will also be more highly elastic than the silicone.…”

“…The manufacturing process, as shown in Figure 1, allows for rapid, reliable, and scalable production of large sensor sheets. As this process just focuses on printing the layers, it is simpler than other existing works [26,34]. Otherwise, the screen-printing technologies are easy to approach and apply in industry.…”

A Large‐Area, Stretchable, Textile‐Based Tactile Sensor

“…[ 16,17 ] The sensitivity and resolution of some sensors have exceeded that of human fingertip skin. [ 18,19 ] However, the large‐scale use of tactile sensor arrays is still a challenging problem. This is because the number of sensor units will increase significantly with the increase of coverage area, and the computing scale of signal processing will also increase significantly.…”