A flexible capacitive tactile sensing array for pressure measurement

This paper presents a flexible capacitive tactile sensing array based on Flexible Printed Circuit Board(FPCB) technology. Several prototype flexible tactile sensors have been successfully fabricated by using simple processes. The sensing array consists of two flexible printed circuit boards as sensing electrodes and insulation layer between them. This simple design can effectively reduce the complexity of the device and make the device flexible that is immune from damage under large deformation. The corresponding scanning circuits and data processing are also designed and implemented. Experimental characterization of a sensing element shows that the full-scale range of detectable force is 9.5N, the sensitivity is 14.38% /N, the calculated non-linear error is 1.95%, its repeatability error is 5.00%. The capacitive tactile sensor can provide reliable forces applied on its surface and visually pressure distribution.