3D printed biomimetic whisker-based sensor with co-planar capacitive sensing

This paper describes the development of a whisker sensor for tactile purposes and which is fabricated by 3D printing. Read-out consists of a capacitive measurement of a co-planar capacitance which is affected by a dielectric that is driven into the electric field of the capacitance. The current implementation contains a PCB to provide the required electrode structures. We present the design, fabrication and mechanical and capacitive characterisation of this sensor.