Piezoelectric polymer transducer arrays for flexible tactile sensors

Abstract

The paper focuses on the manufacturing technology of modular components for large-area tactile sensors, which are made of arrays of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) piezoelectric polymer taxels integrated on flexible PCBs. PVDF transducers were chosen for the high electromechanical transduction frequency bandwidth (up to 1 kHz for the given application). Patterned electrodes were inkjet printed on the PVDF film. Experimental tests on skin module prototypes demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach and reveal the potentiality to build large area flexible and conformable robotic skin.