Pressure Sensing Fabric
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0920-S05-05
Pressure Sensing Fabric Zhang Hui1, Tao Xiao Ming1, Yu Tong Xi2, and Li Xin Sheng1 1 Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China, People's Republic of 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China, People's Republic of
ABSTRACT This paper1 presents an approach for decoding the pressure information exerted over a piece of fabric by means of resistive sensing. The proposed sensor includes a distributed resistive grids constructed by two systems of orthogonally contacted electrical conductive yarns, with no external sensing element to be attached on the fabric. Since the conductive yarns serve as the sensing and wiring elements simultaneously, this design simplifies the fabrication process, reduces the cost and makes the production of large area flexible pressure sensor possible. The location of the pressure applied on the fabric can be identified by detecting the position where the change of the resistances occurs between two embroidered yarns. Meanwhile, the magnitude of the pressure can be acquired by measuring the variations of the resistance. In order to eliminate the “crosstalk” effect between adjoining fibers, the yarns were separately wired on the fabric surface. INTRODUCTION With the recent development of wearable electronics, widely extended pressure sensors (soft switch) are in increasing need. Such sensors have to be elastic, wearable, washable, possibly extendable to cover a three-dimensional surface, robust to work in harsh environment, and reliable to supply accurate measurement. Meanwhile, they must be produced at low-cost as to not affect the overall product cost. The use of thin and flexible sensors for pressure measurement is of interest due to the wide range of applications [1]. Therefore, the main issues are focused on fabrication of these sensors with flexible, thin, extensible substrates. Fabric is very appealing candidate for its elastic, deformable, low-cost, easy-fabrication, and wearable properties. Some simple fabric structure pressure sensors have been studied recently by using two or more electrical conductive layers insulated by spacing layers based on capacitive or resistive effects of the these conductive layers [2-7]. However, due to the multi-layers of the sensor structure, these sensors are thick, heavy and unbreathable, so that they are not suitable for wearable devices, while the cost and the complexity of fabrication also increase. This paper presents a special single-layer resistive fabric pressure sensor sewn by two orthogonally interconnected conductive yarn systems for decoding the pressure exerted over the sensor fabric by means of resistive sensing. The pressure and location can be measured 1
Some models and part of this work have been submitted to IEEE sensor journal.
simultaneously using the fabric sensing system that is flexible, wearable, thin, and environmentally stable. This is a pure textile structured sensor with easy-fabrication and low cost. SE
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