Low-cost sensor tape for environmental sensing based on roll-to-roll manufacturing process

• Main Authors: Gong, Nan-Wei (Author), Wang, Chiu-Yen (Author), Gong, Nan-wei (Contributor), Paradiso, Joseph A (Author)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Responsive Environments Group (Contributor), Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (Contributor), Paradiso, Joseph A. (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2013-09-11T18:40:31Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

We describe the concept of fabricating low-cost sensor tape for fine-grid environmental sensing based on roll-to-roll manufacturing processes. We experiment with constructing sensors and electronic connections with low-cost conductive inkjet printed copper traces. Our first attempt is to fabricate humidity sensors by spin-coating conductive polymer on sensor substrates and integrating the design with an embedded system. The humidity sensor was tested in a two-point probe and exhibits the I-V profile of a diode. We demonstrated a working humidity sensor with an impedance variance of 30 kΩ from 99% to 58% RH within 300 seconds under a 1.4 volt bias.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory