Design, Fabrication, and Testing of a Fully 3D-Printed Pressure Sensor Using a Hybrid Printing Approach

Abstract

Pressure sensing is not a new concept and can be applied by using different transduction mechanisms and manufacturing techniques, including printed electronics approaches. However, very limited efforts have been taken to realise pressure sensors fully using additive manufacturing techniques, especially for personalised guide prosthetics in biomedical applications. In this work, we present a novel, fully printed piezoresistive pressure sensor, which was realised by using Aerosol Jet® Printing (AJP) and Screen Printing. AJ®P was specifically chosen to print silver interconnects on a selective laser sintered (SLS) polyamide board as a customised substrate, while piezoresistive electrodes were manually screen-printed on the top of the interconnects as the sensing layer. The sensor was electromechanically tested, and its response was registered upon the application of given signals, in terms of sensitivity, hysteresis, reproducibility, and time drift. When applying a ramping pressure, the sensor showed two different sensitive regions: (i) a highly sensitive region in the range of 0 to 0.12 MPa with an average sensitivity of 106 Ω/MPa and a low sensitive zone within 0.12 to 1.25 MPa with an average sensitivity of 7.6 Ω/MPa with some indeterminate overlapping regions. Hysteresis was negligible and an electrical resistance deviation of about 14% was observed in time drift experiments. Such performances will satisfy the demands of our application in the biomedical field as a smart prosthetics guide.