LAUSR

Flexible electronics combined with new materials and fabrication processes offer unique characteristics such as mechanical flexibility, thin-form factor, large area scaling feasibility, and adaptability to irregular surfaces. In this work, a smart electronic skin adopting the hybrid system-in-foil concept is designed to monitor the uniaxial bending of a robotic gripper. The newly designed smart skin contains an array of printed strain gauges, organic thin-film transistor (TFT) addressing circuits and a 20 μm ultra-thin silicon readout chip, all integrated on the same polymeric foil. The silver-ink printed strain gauges achieve a relative resistance sensitivity ΔR/R of 2% and a gauge factor of 2. In addition, the organic TFT multiplexer containing a three-stage shift register and analogue switches operate at a frequency of 100 Hz and a supply voltage of 3 V. The ultra-thin silicon chip provides the functions of system control, strain gauge readout, analogue-to-digital conversion and serial communication.