Abstract
In this article, we report the development of a flexible, 3D printable piezoresistive pressure sensor capable of measuring force and detecting the location of the force. The multilayer sensor comprises of an ionic liquid-based piezoresistive intermediate layer in between carbon nanotube (CNT)-based stretchable electrodes. A sensor containing an array of different sensing units was embedded on the inner liner surface of a 3D printed tire to provide with force information at different points of contact between the tire and road. Four scaled tires, as well as wheels, were 3D printed using a flexible and a rigid material, respectively, which were later assembled with a 3D-printed chassis. Only one tire was equipped with a sensor and the chassis was driven through a motorized linear stage at different speeds and load conditions to evaluate the sensor performance. The sensor was fabricated via molding and screen printing processes using a commercially available 3D-printable photopolymer as 3D printing is our target manufacturing technique to fabricate the entire tire assembly with the sensor. Results show that the proposed sensors, inserted in the 3D printed tire assembly, could detect forces, as well as their locations, properly.
Highlights
Tires equipped with different sensors have always been an area of research interest and ongoing progress [1]
Current sensors used in tire testing have limitations, including flexibility, stretchability, sensitivity, and stability [8,9,10], which is the motivation of this work
There are two layers of a multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT)/polymer composite which work as conductive electrodes
Summary
Tires equipped with different sensors have always been an area of research interest and ongoing progress [1]. IL/polymer composites have been studied, while they are developed by integrating ILs into prepolymers so that they, subsequently, become polymerized [15,17,18] These IL/polymer composites have added a whole new dimension for stretchable and flexible pressure sensors. A few manufacturing processes have been attempted, including screen printing [22,23,24,25], coating [26,27,28], micro-channel molding [29], and filling and lamination techniques [30,31] These processes are limited in 3D designs and extensibility along with high cost, poor durability, lack of manufacturing scalability [32]. The sensor response obtained can lead to a number of practical applications, like road condition and tire health monitoring, movement control, obstacle avoidance, etc
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