Capacitive Pressure Sensors Utilizing a Conductive Human Fingerprint Microstructure

Pressure based tactile sensing is an essential part of how humans interact with their environment. Taking inspiration from a structure naturally optimized to sense force, the human fingertip, this work presents a fingerprint design carbon-black and ecoflex based capacitive pressure sensor. The finagrprint sensor shows a sensitivity improved from $2.94 \times 10^{-4}{\mathrm{P}}\mathrm{a}^{=1}$ to $1.48 \times 10^{-3}\text{Pa}^{-1}$ when compared to an unstructured reference device. The sensor is furthermore compared to simulations and evaluated under receptive loading cycles.