Shielded soft force sensors

Bekir Aksoy, Yufei Hao, Giulio Grasso, Krishna Manaswi Digumarti, Vito Cacucciolo and Herbert Shea ()
Additional contact information
Bekir Aksoy: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Yufei Hao: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Giulio Grasso: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Krishna Manaswi Digumarti: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Vito Cacucciolo: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Herbert Shea: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Force and strain sensors made of soft materials enable robots to interact intelligently with their surroundings. Capacitive sensing is widely adopted thanks to its low power consumption, fast response, and facile fabrication. Capacitive sensors are, however, susceptible to electromagnetic interference and proximity effects and thus require electrical shielding. Shielding has not been previously implemented in soft capacitive sensors due to the parasitic capacitance between the shield and sensing electrodes, which changes when the sensor is deformed. We address this crucial challenge by patterning the central sensing elastomer layer to control its compressibility. One design uses an ultrasoft silicone foam, and the other includes microchannels filled with liquid metal and air. The force resolution is sub-mN both in normal and shear directions, yet the sensor withstands large forces (>20 N), demonstrating a wide dynamic range. Performance is unaffected by nearby high DC and AC electric fields and even electric sparks.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32391-0 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-32391-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32391-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().