A tactile sensing array with tunable sensing ranges using liquid crystal and carbon nanotubes composites

This work presents the development of a novel pressure sensing array whose sensing ranges are tunable during operation. The sensing material comprises carbon nanotubes (CNT) dispersed in nematic liquid crystals (LC) composites. The sensing element consists of the LC-CNT composite, a deformable PDMS elastomeric structure, an ITO glass substrate and an ITO PET film. The sensing ranges can be tuned by varying the magnitude of the applied external field supplied by the array scanning circuitry. This capability of tunable sensing ranges can be employed for the applications which require different measurement ranges of forces, without the need of adjusting the dynamic ranges of sensor readout circuitry.