Capacitive Sensor Design for Soft Robots and Smart Garments

Selecting a sensor modality to detect deformation in a soft robot or smart garment presents multiple trade-offs. Capacitive sensors have numerous advantages but are susceptible to electrical disturbances. To guide sensor design, we modeled four electrode configurations on a soft origami robot and compared two electrode designs on a fabricated soft robot to find a configuration with high displacement sensitivity and acceptable disturbance rejection. We found that a combination of three electrodes reduces the response to a nearby electrical motor by a factor of 12 and to a grounded rod by 150 over the previous design.