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. 2019 Oct 14;19(20):4437.
doi: 10.3390/s19204437.

Experimental Assessment of the Interface Electronic System for PVDF-Based Piezoelectric Tactile Sensors

Moustafa Saleh  1   2 , Yahya Abbass  3 , Ali Ibrahim  4   5 , Maurizio Valle  6
Affiliations

Experimental Assessment of the Interface Electronic System for PVDF-Based Piezoelectric Tactile Sensors

Moustafa Saleh et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Tactile sensors are widely employed to enable the sense of touch for applications such as robotics and prosthetics. In addition to the selection of an appropriate sensing material, the performance of the tactile sensing system is conditioned by its interface electronic system. On the other hand, due to the need to embed the tactile sensing system into a prosthetic device, strict requirements such as small size and low power consumption are imposed on the system design. This paper presents the experimental assessment and characterization of an interface electronic system for piezoelectric tactile sensors for prosthetic applications. The interface electronic is proposed as part of a wearable system intended to be integrated into an upper limb prosthetic device. The system is based on a low power arm-microcontroller and a DDC232 device. Electrical and electromechanical setups have been implemented to assess the response of the interface electronic with PVDF-based piezoelectric sensors. The results of electrical and electromechanical tests validate the correct functionality of the proposed system.

Keywords: experimental characterization; interface electronics; sensors measurements; signal to noise ratio; tactile sensors.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Block diagram for the tactile sensing system.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cross-sectional view of a single sensor unit, sketch with indicative thicknesses of the various layers.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Sketch of the general working mechanism of P(VDF-TrFE) sensors.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Interface electronic printed board circuit (left) and block diagram of the DDC232 (right) [9].
Figure 5
Figure 5
Block diagram of the electrical setup; equivalent circuit of sensor (left) connected to interface electronics; generated signals are reconstructed by the interface electronics (IE) and sent to the PC.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Experimental setup block diagram.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Experimental setup.
Figure 8
Figure 8
(a) The theoretical fit-line is calculated from Qtheoretical = CpVp sin(2πfTINT) derived from the equations presented in [13]; (b) shows the output of the IE relative to input signals generated from the source generator.
Figure 9
Figure 9
(a) IE output measurements with real sensors; (b) conditioner output measurements with real sensors.
Figure 10
Figure 10
(a) Sensitivity as a function of frequency; (b) measured charges at the minimum detectable force (0.01 N).
Figure 11
Figure 11
Example of an input signal at 100 Hz of frequency in time and frequency domains.
Figure 12
Figure 12
SINAD and ENOB variation with respect to applied forces.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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