Structural engineering methods to combine the diaphragm and cantilevers for flexible capacitive pressure sensor

Structural engineering provides enormous support to the design and analysis of sensitivity enhancement and optimisation of flexible sensors. Including that, the household materials are playing a vital role in democratising the electronics/robotics. We have utilised these materials to perform structural engineering approach to design the flexible capacitive pressure sensor for 1-20 kPa operational range. Different modal analysis with different number of cantilevers at the edges of the circular and square shaped diaphragms are presented. Initially, we performed finite element of analysis of all possible designs. For further sensitivity enhancement, we changed the shape of cantilevers from rectangular to isosceles trapezium and connected the small side of trapezium to the diaphragms. The sensors are fabricated using aluminium coated polyimide foil, double sided tape and posted paper. We have utilized the Versa 2000 carbon dioxide laser to cut these foils and further utilised the DIY-fabrication techniques. We performed the experimental investigation of all the possible designed using air pressure and acoustic pressure monitoring set-up.

Ref: R. B. Mishra, F. Al-Modaf, W. Babatain, A. M. Hussain, N. El-Atab, IEEE Sensors J., 22, 11543 (2020).