Capacitive fiber-meshed transducers for touch and proximity-sensing applications

Abstract

Capacitive sensing is used in manufacturing E-textiles for touch and proximity-sensing applications. The common approach is to construct electrodes on top of a nonconductive fabric structures. Woven and knitted fabric structures are used for the construction; metallic wire and conductive coated fibers are primarily used. Due to the performance degradation and poor comfort of these constructions, we have constructed electrodes with inherently conductive polymers and multifilament metallic fibers by integrating them into fiber-meshed structures such that the electrodes are a part of the nonconductive base structure. We have used capacitive and resistive measurement techniques for the detection. Out of many mechanical methods of fiber-integrating processors, we have used flat bed-knitting technology and Jacquard weaving technology. In this paper, we have discussed the construction, sensing, and applications of capacitive fiber-meshed transducers and their applications.