Development of microfluidic based multidirectional flow sensor inspired from artificial cupula

This paper presents the developments of microfluidic based multidirectional flow sensor inspired from artificial cupula. The proposed flow sensor consists of one-side-electrode and dome-shaped membrane that integrated with microchannel. When the flows impart the dome-shaped membrane, it will displace the liquid inside the microchannel and give changes in capacitance. Computational fluid dynamic analysis for dome structure using ANSYS Fluent software was discussed and compared with the hair structure. The Polydimethylsiloxane material was chosen for main material based on its potential properties to be implemented as a membrane. The micro-stamping technique to form a thin dome-shaped membrane was discussed where the uniform thickness was achieved by using this technique. The experiment was setup for water flow measurement, directionality test and moving object detection. For sensor characterization, the operating frequency and time response of the sensor obtained where respectively to 1.2 kHz and 0.35 s. The sensor was able to measure the flow rate as lower as 10 cm/s in water with the resolution of 5 cm/s. The experiment result also proved that the sensor was capable to detect the flow in multiple directions.