Development of a versatile capacitive tactile sensor based on transparent flexible materials integrating an excellent sensitivity and a high resolution

A versatile capacitive tactile sensor based on transparent flexible materials is developed in a simple and low-cost fabrication process. The sensor shows an excellent sensitivity (S=2.05 N-1), and is highly sensitive to the load as low as about 3 mN. Moreover, it exhibits a prominent resolution. The excellent device performance is attributed to the creative design of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) polymer layer, used as the structural material of the sensor, in which each sensing section acting as a sensor unit is a concave square with hemispheric micro-structured PDMS arrays. Meanwhile, other sections without any PDMS arrays serving as perfect natural wall-barriers can make each sensor unit separated effectively. Copyright 2012 Author(s). This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4706011]