Improving Printed Angle Sensor Performance by Compression-Tension Sensor Pair Compensation

Abstract

Silver nanoparticle angle sensors are inkjet printed on a flexible PET substrate and implemented as pairs of compression and tension side folding individuals into a rigid experimental setup. Resulting combined signals improved the individual sensor responses due to their compensating characteristics, and gave the best performances in the existing literature in terms of linearity, sensor life-time, static and cyclic drift, hysteresis and dynamic dependency. Proposed method is promising for eliminating the major limitations on the printed sensor use in flexible hinges and paving the way to fully soft all-integrated foldable robots.