Piezoelectric polymer transducer arrays for flexible tactile sensors

Author

Seminara, L. ; Pinna, L. ; Valle, M. ; Basirico, Laura ; Loi, Alberto ; Cosseddu, P. ; Bonfiglio, A. ; Ascia, A. ; Biso, Maurizio ; Ansaldo, Alberto ; Ricci, Davide ; Metta, G.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Telecommun., Electron., Electr. & Naval Eng., Univ. of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

fYear

2012

fDate

28-31 Oct. 2012

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

The paper focuses on the manufacturing technology of modular components for large-area tactile sensors, which are made of arrays of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) piezoelectric polymer taxels integrated on flexible PCBs. PVDF transducers were chosen for the high electromechanical transduction frequency bandwidth (up to 1 kHz for the given application). Patterned electrodes were inkjet printed on the PVDF film. Experimental tests on skin module prototypes demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach and reveal the potentiality to build large area flexible and conformable robotic skin.

Keywords

electromechanical effects; ink jet printing; piezoelectric transducers; polymer films; printed circuits; robots; sensor arrays; tactile sensors; thin film sensors; PVDF film; conformable robotic skin; electromechanical transducer; flexible PCB; flexible robotic skin; flexible tactile sensor; inkjet printing; modular component manufacturing technology; patterned electrode; piezoelectric polymer transducer array; polyvinylidene fluoride; Films; Polymers; Skin; Tactile sensors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Sensors, 2012 IEEE

Conference_Location

Taipei

ISSN

1930-0395

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-1766-6

Electronic_ISBN

1930-0395

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSENS.2012.6411300

Filename

6411300