MSU Technologies

FLEXIBLE SENSOR

VAlue proposition

Inflatable structures provide significant volume and weight savings for future space and soft robotic applications. Structural health monitoring of these structures is essential for safe operation, providing early warnings of damage, and measuring structural changes over time. An approach is desired for a single flexible strain sensor for distributed monitoring of an inflatable tube, in particular, the position of a kink and its magnitude.

Description of Technology

This sensor technology consists of three layers of a flexible conductive substrate, such as a fabric with conductive ink deposited thereon. The first layer will form a flexible resister in which the resistance consistently and predictably changes with the kink magnitude should a kink occurs somewhere along the tube. The other two layers form a flexible potentiometer and are separated by a spacer; when these two layers are in contact due to a kink at some position, the measured resistance between the two layers is directly correlated with the kink position.

Benefits