Localised strain sensing of dielectric elastomers in a stretchable soft-touch musical keyboard

Daniel Xu; Andreas Tairych; Iain A. Anderson

doi:10.1117/12.2084770

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1 April 2015 Localised strain sensing of dielectric elastomers in a stretchable soft-touch musical keyboard

Daniel Xu, Andreas Tairych, Iain A. Anderson

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Proceedings Volume 9430, Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) 2015; 943025 (2015) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2084770
Event: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, 2015, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

We present a new sensing method that can measure the strain at different locations in a dielectric elastomer. The method uses multiple sensing frequencies to target different regions of the same dielectric elastomer to simultaneously detect position and pressure using only a single pair of connections. The dielectric elastomer is modelled as an RC transmission line and its internal voltage and current distribution used to determine localised capacitance changes resulting from contact and pressure. This sensing method greatly simplifies high degree of freedom systems and does not require any modifications to the dielectric elastomer or sensing hardware. It is demonstrated on a multi-touch musical keyboard made from a single low cost carbon-based dielectric elastomer with 4 distinct musical tones mapped along a length of 0.1m. Loudness was controlled by the amount of pressure applied to each of these 4 positions.

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Daniel Xu, Andreas Tairych, and Iain A. Anderson "Localised strain sensing of dielectric elastomers in a stretchable soft-touch musical keyboard", Proc. SPIE 9430, Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) 2015, 943025 (1 April 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2084770

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