Design and fabrication of a 3D pressure sensor

In this paper the design, fabrication and electric measurement of a 3D force/pressure sensor are presented. The capacitive technology is used for the device prototyping. The advantages of using the capacitive technology are the principle's simplicity, the possibility measure vectorial forces via the capacitance variation which is in the range of the femto Farad. The sensor is expected to measure the force variation with a design using three capacitances Cx, Cy and Cz (for each X, Y and Z direction). A first sensor generation has been made and a first characterization work has been done. The measured capacitance at equilibrium is 0.68pF in the Z direction.