Capacitive pressure sensor fabricated using printed circuit board techniques

A capacitive sensor to measure pressure can be developed using standard PCB processing techniques and soldering using a hot plate, at a very low cost. However, the sensitivity achieved with such a sensor is very good for most applications. The paper describes the development of a sensor designed and constructed using these techniques, and integrated with an electronic circuit that converts the capacitance into frequency. The experimental results show very good behavior. Furthermore, the idea can be adapted to develop other low-cost sensors or devices.