Demonstration of >30K-Cycle Stability of a Printed-Circuit-Board-Based Network Tactile Sensor with Embedded Sensor Platform LSI

This study reports on the reliability testing of a tactile sensor network including 9 PCB-based single-axis tactile sensors, mounted in a shared bus. The sensor used in the array, with a 10 mm square footprint, is formed by 4 PCB layers that encapsulate the sensing electrodes and an embedded sensor platform LSI with a dedicated capacitance readout circuit and a differential, serial communications interface. We confirmed, through multiple loading cycles, that the proposed PCB-based, semi-rigid structure exhibits enough elasticity and robustness for force sensing applications.