Abstract
Abstract. Current additive manufacturing allows for the implementation of electrically interrogated 3-D printed sensors. In this contribution various technologies, sensing principles and applications are discussed. We will give both an overview of some of the sensors presented in literature as well as some of our own recent work on 3-D printed sensors. The 3-D printing methods discussed include fused deposition modelling (FDM), using multi-material printing and poly-jetting. Materials discussed are mainly thermoplastics and include thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), both un-doped as well as doped with carbon black, polylactic acid (PLA) and conductive inks. The sensors discussed are based on biopotential sensing, capacitive sensing and resistive sensing with applications in surface electromyography (sEMG) and mechanical and tactile sensing. As these sensors are based on plastics they are in general flexible and therefore open new possibilities for sensing in soft structures, e.g. as used in soft robotics. At the same time they show many of the characteristics of plastics like hysteresis, drift and non-linearity. We will argue that 3-D printing of embedded sensors opens up exciting new possibilities but also that these sensors require us to rethink how to exploit non-ideal sensors.
Highlights
Additive manufacturing (AM), more colloquially known as 3-D printing, is a fabrication technology in which parts are built layer-by-layer from a digital description using one of a variety of methods to deposit and solidify specific materials
We investigated the possibilities of fabricating strain sensors consisting of co-printed dielectric beams and conductors
Rather than abandoning 3D printed sensors, it becomes extremely interesting to think of systems which are resilient to the non-linearities of sensors, e.g. by smart signal processing or by measurement and control strategies that show awareness of non-linearities
Summary
Additive manufacturing (AM), more colloquially known as 3-D printing, is a fabrication technology in which parts are built layer-by-layer from a digital description using one of a variety of methods to deposit and solidify specific materials. The technology has been around for more than 3 decades but recently the number of materials that can be printed, the resolution and speed with which this can be done and the ability to combine more than one material in multi-material prints have been improved significantly. Recent developments in multi-material 3-D printing have started to trigger research into printing of functional structures (Leigh et al, 2012). For customised structures that already are made by AM, e.g. robotics and prosthetics, embedding 3-D printed sensors seems a promising step to increase functionality. The development of this technology will allow application of sensors, independent of commercial-off-the-shelve (COTS)
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