Biomimetic hair sensors: Utilizing the third dimension

Nature and biology utilize a myriad of structures, materials, and schemes to achieve superb sensing performance with extreme reliability and robustness. One structure used more commonly in nature is the “hair”. Hair-like sensors are used for acoustic, chemical, flow, pressure, and gas sensing, among others. Hair-like actuators and passive structures are also used for thermal management, filtering, fluid flow control, etc. This paper discusses opportunities and approaches for developing hair-like biomimetic structures for sensing. It discusses fabrication technologies for formation of 3-dimensional structures and creation of transduction functions on these hair structures, and proposes how electronics can be utilized to further improve the functionality of these sensors. A micro hair sensor for measuring air flow speed and direction based on hydraulic amplification is presented as an example of a biomimetic hair sensor.