Abstract
This paper presents a tilt sensor comprising of 3D printed capacitive sensors located at the four ends of a ‘+’ shaped channel to provide the orientation of objects by using the capacitive fluid level measurement concept. The interdigitated capacitive sensors were developed by 3D printing and the channel was filled with ecoflex and silicone oil to obtain two variants of tilt sensor. The results show a change in the capacitance of ~11.5% and ~9.53% for ecoflex and silicone oil-based sensors respectively. A drift of ~2.6% is observed for ecoflex and ~0.16% for silicone oil. Considering the lower viscosity and the lower drift, the silicone oil-based tilt sensors were further investigated and two tilt sensors with varying silicone volumes (1 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ml</i> and 1.5 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ml</i> ) were fabricated and compared for tilt angles ranging from 0° to 30°. The result from all four interdigitated capacitive sensors in the tilt sensing structure show similar rate of change in capacitance (~0.67% per degree increase in the tilt angle) with a standard deviation of ~±0.1%. However, the sensor with higher volume of silicone oil (1.5 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ml</i> ) saturated at a tilt angle of ~20° which is ~10° smaller than the response of the sensor fabricated with 1 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ml</i> of silicone oil (saturated at 30°). We also demonstrate the possibility of extending the sensor range by optimizing the volume of fluid and the channel’s fluid capacity. With integration of fabricated tilt sensor with a robots’ body, white cane or smart objects etc., it will be possible to obtain the information about orientation.
Highlights
THE recent advancement in 3D/4D printing techniques have significantly contributed to the realization of smart and complex systems such as robots [1,2,3,4], prosthetics [5, 6], DIY ventilators [7], wearable systems as well as human-machine interfaces etc. [8, 9]. 3D printing is an excellent approach for advancing these applications as it allows rapid production of low-cost functional mechanical structures
By simultaneously observing the output values of sensors 1, 2, 3 and 4, we can determine the object orientation using equation (1). This is similar to the equation used for capacitive fluid level measurement techniques in which the capacitance is directly related to the level of fluid in contact with the sensor (Equation (1), Fig. 1e)
We have presented 3D printed interdigitated capacitive sensors usable for fluid level measurement and a fluid-based tilt sensing application
Summary
THE recent advancement in 3D/4D printing techniques have significantly contributed to the realization of smart and complex systems such as robots [1,2,3,4], prosthetics [5, 6], DIY ventilators [7], wearable systems as well as human-machine interfaces etc. [8, 9]. 3D printing is an excellent approach for advancing these applications as it allows rapid production of low-cost functional mechanical structures. We first fabricated four similar interdigitated capacitive sensors using multimaterial 3D printing and carried out a comparison of their fluid level sensing capability using Ecoflex and silicone oil. The findings were utilized to fabricate the 3D printed tilt sensor using silicone oil as the tilting fluid, Silicone oil is six times less viscous (500cps), and shows lower drift in comparison with EcoflexTM (3000cps). This is an extension of our previous work [37]. We carried out more analysis of the Ecoflex-based sensor and compared its performance with a newly fabricated tilt sensor realize with a silicone oil (a less viscous fluid).
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