Development of a Carbon Fiber Knitted Capacitive Touch Sensor
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Development of a Carbon Fiber Knitted Capacitive Touch Sensor Richard Vallett1,2,3, Ryan Young1,2,4, Chelsea Knittel1,2,5, Youngmoo Kim2,6, and Genevieve Dion1,2,7 1
Shima Seiki Haute Tech Lab at ExCITe, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States ExCITe Center, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States 3 Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, College of Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States 4 Department of Computer Science, College of Computing and Informatics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States 5 Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States 6 Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States 7 Department of Design, Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States 2
ABSTRACT Textiles, in combination with advances in materials and design, offer exciting new possibilities for human and environmental interaction, including biometric and touch-based sensing. Previous fabric-based or flexible touch sensors have generally required a large number of sensing electrodes positioned in a dense XY grid configuration and a multitude of wires. This paper investigates the design and manufacturing of a planar (two-dimensional, XY location) touch fabric sensor with only two electrodes (wires) to sense both planar touch and pressure, making it ideal for applications with limited space/complexity for wiring. The proposed knitted structure incorporates a supplementary method of sensing to detect human touch on the fabric surface, which offers advantages over previous methods of touch localization through an efficient use of wire connections and sensing materials. This structure is easily manufactured as a single component utilizing flatbed knitting techniques and electrically conductive yarns. The design requires no embedded electronics or solid components in the fabric, which allows the sensor to be flexible and resilient. This paper discusses the design, fabrication, sensing methods, and applications of the fabric sensor in robotics and human-machine interaction, smart garments, and wearables, as well as the highly transdisciplinary approach pursued in developing medical textiles and flexible embedded sensors. INTRODUCTION Touch-sensitive interfaces offer unique and robust levels of interaction between users and touchenabled devices. In the last 10 years, human-computer interaction (HCI) reaped tremendous benefit from the design and development of such interfaces, now ubiquitous in smartphones and tablets. Other HCI areas, such as robotics and wearable technology, could benefit from sensors that detect touch—especially soft and flexible ones. In the field of robotics, soft touch sensors could improve the quality of human-robot interaction (HRI). Low-cost depth cameras have revolutionized aspects of HRI in terms of environment mapping and kinematic planning. However, tactile sensing, which directly correlates
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