LAUSR

Soft capacitive stretch sensors are well suited for unobtrusive wearable body motion capture. Conventional sensing methods measure sensor capacitances through separate channels. In sensing garments with many sensors, this results in high wiring complexity, and a large footprint of rigid sensing circuit boards. We have developed a more efficient sensing method that detects multiple sensors through only one channel, and one set of wires. It is based on a R-C transmission line assembled from capacitive conductive fabric stretch sensors, and external resistors. The unknown capacitances are identified by solving a system of nonlinear equations. These equations are established by modelling and continuously measuring transmission line reactances at different frequencies. Solving these equations numerically with a Newton–Raphson solver for the unknown capacitances enables real time reading of all sensors. The method was verified with a prototype comprising three sensors that is capable of detecting both individually and simultaneously stretched sensors. Instead of using three channels and six wires to detect the sensors, the task was achieved with only one channel and two wires.