A tactile sensing array with tunable sensing ranges using liquid crystal and carbon nanotubes composites

Author

Lai, Yu-Tse ; Kuo, Wen-Cheng ; Yang, Yao-Joe

Author_Institution

Nat. Taiwan Univ., Taipei, Taiwan

fYear

2011

fDate

23-27 Jan. 2011

Firstpage

553

Lastpage

556

Abstract

This work presents the development of a novel pressure sensing array whose sensing ranges are tunable during operation. The sensing material comprises carbon nanotubes (CNT) dispersed in nematic liquid crystals (LC) composites. The sensing element consists of the LC-CNT composite, a deformable PDMS elastomeric structure, an ITO glass substrate and an ITO PET film. The sensing ranges can be tuned by varying the magnitude of the applied external field supplied by the array scanning circuitry. This capability of tunable sensing ranges can be employed for the applications which require different measurement ranges of forces, without the need of adjusting the dynamic ranges of sensor readout circuitry.

Keywords

carbon nanotubes; elastomers; nematic liquid crystals; pressure sensors; sensor arrays; tactile sensors; ITO PET film; ITO glass substrate; array scanning circuitry; carbon nanotubes composites; deformable PDMS elastomeric structure; nematic liquid crystals composites; pressure sensing array; tactile sensing array; tunable sensing ranges; Arrays; Force; Glass; Indium tin oxide; Positron emission tomography; Robot sensing systems;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), 2011 IEEE 24th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Cancun

ISSN

1084-6999

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9632-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MEMSYS.2011.5734484

Filename

5734484