A Stretchable Multimodal Sensor for Soft Robotic Applications

This paper presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of a multimodal sensor with integrated stretchable meandered interconnects for uniaxial strain, pressure, and uniaxial shear stress measurements. It is designed based on a capacitive sensing principle for embedded deformable sensing applications. A photolithographic process is used along with laser machining and sheet metal forming technique to pattern sensor elements together with stretchable grid-based interconnects on a thin sheet of copper polyimide laminate as a base material in a single process. The structure is embedded in a soft stretchable Ecoflex and PDMS silicon rubber encapsulation. The strain, pressure, and shear stress sensors are characterized up to 9%, 25 kPa, and +/- 11 kPa of maximum loading, respectively. The strain sensor exhibits an almost linear response to stretching with an average sensitivity of -28.9 fF%(-1). The pressure sensor, however, shows a nonlinear and significant hysteresis characteristic due to nonlinear and viscoelastic property of the silicon rubber encapsulation. An average best-fit straight line sensitivity of 30.9 fFkPa(-1) was recorded. The sensitivity of shear stress sensor is found to be 8.1 fFkPa(-1). The three sensing elements also demonstrate a good cross-sensitivity performance of 3.1% on average. This paper proves that a common flexible printed circuit board (PCB) base material could be transformed into stretchable circuits with integrated multimodal sensor using established PCB fabrication technique, laser machining, and sheet metal forming method.