3D printed capacitive sensors

Abstract

Recent advances in the field of 3D printing have utilized embedded electronic interconnects in order to construct advanced electronic devices. This work builds on these advances in order to construct and characterize arbitrarily formed capacitive sensors using fine-pitch copper mesh and embedded copper wires. Three varieties of sensors were fabricated and tested, including a small area wire sensor (320μm width), a large area mesh sensor (2cm2), and a fully embedded demonstration model. In order to test and characterize these sensors in FDM materials, three distinct tests were explored. Specifically, the sensors were able to distinguish between three metallic materials and distinguish salt water from distilled water. These capacitive sensors have many potential sensing applications, such as biomedical sensing, human interface devices, material sensing, electronics characterization, and environmental sensing. As such, this work specifically examines optimum mesh/wire capacitive parameters as well as potential applications such as 3D printed integrated material sensing.