A very high density floating electrode flexible sensor array for high-resolution measurements of contact forces

Author

Surapaneni, R. ; Qingbo Guo ; Young, Douglas J. ; Mastrangelo, Carlos H.

Author_Institution

Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

fYear

2013

fDate

3-6 Nov. 2013

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

We present the development, fabrication and testing results of a new high-density flexible sensor array (HDFA) suitable of recording three-axis stresses with high spatial resolution. The new HDFA consists of 676 (26×26) sensing cells fabricated on top of a high-density flex circuit substrate. Each sensing cell is implemented using four floating comb electrodes separated from the flex substrate by a thin layer of a compressible PDMS film. Each sensing cell measures 2.77×2.55 mm² thus packing 2704 capacitors in an area of ~ 50 cm². The HDFA is read using a high-speed switched-capacitor circuit with a 13-bit resolution at full frame rates of 100 Hz (~0.8Mb/s). The new array is capable of detecting contact line displacements as low as 35 μm and contact line velocities as low as 38 μm/s.

Keywords

capacitors; electrodes; electronics packaging; flexible electronics; force measurement; force sensors; polymer films; sensor arrays; switched capacitor networks; HDFA; compressible PDMS film; contact line displacement detection; floating comb electrode; frequency 100 Hz; high-density flex circuit substrate; high-resolution contact force measurement; high-speed switched-capacitor circuit; packing 2704 capacitor; spatial resolution; three-axis stress recording; very high density floating electrode flexible sensor array; word length 13 bit; Arrays; Capacitance; Electrodes; Fabrication; Robot sensing systems; Stress;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

SENSORS, 2013 IEEE

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD

ISSN

1930-0395

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSENS.2013.6688346

Filename

6688346