Unidirectional sensitive flexible sensor for bending measurements

Abstract

The measurement of bending direction and bending angles is essential in the multiaxial servo-controlled system, especially for collaborative robots. However, most flexible sensors developed for bending measurements cannot distinguish bending directions due to their sensitivity to both positive and negative bending. Also, these sensors usually exhibit simultaneous response to normal pressure, which results in additional calibration. Here, a unidirectional-sensitive flexible capacitive sensor is proposed. A simple asymmetric pyramidal microstructure was designed to create uneven responses to positive and negative bending and minimum response to normal pressure based on the fringe effect. The fabricated sensor shows a relative capacitance change of nearly 0.9 in the sensitive direction and only 0.05 in the other direction as the sensor bends from flat to the curvature radius of 10 mm. Also, the sensor shows negligible sensitivity even under a normal pressure force as high as 16 N, either in planar or bending condition.