Advantages of printed sensors | Disadvantages of printed sensors
This page covers advantages and disadvantages of flexible printed sensors. It mentions benefits or advantages of printed sensors and drawbacks or disadvantages of printed sensors.
Introduction: Conventional PCB based electronic devices are rigid and occupy more space. Moreover they are not light in weight and have fixed form factor. In order to address these shortcomings of conventional PCBs, flexible printed sensors and flexible PCBs have been developed.
There are many revolutions in the industry which drive their adoption which include IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things), healthcare, smart homes, smart cities etc. The typical applications of printed sensors are temperature and humidity monitoring, air quality measurement, leak detection, fingerprint sensing, force sensing, vibration identification, flexible displays, solar products, batteries etc.
Basics and types of printed sensors
Based on input, output and various other mechanical quantities, different types of sensors are manufactured using 3D printing. These printed sensors are realized using flexible hybrid electronics based on printing and silicon technologies.
Following are the different types of flexible printed sensors.
• Printed Pressure sensor : It works on piezoresistive or piezoelectric principle. The common applications of this sensor are force sensitive touchpads, smart flooring etc.
• Printed Temperature sensor : It uses printed flexible technology to manufacture in 2D for cost effectiveness. It is used for many applications including temperature monitoring in
mobile phones, laptops, electric vehicles etc.
• Printed light sensor (or optical sensor) : It uses organic photovoltaic principle along with light detection optimization.
• Printed Capacitive Strain sensor : It is used in e-textile applications such as medical rehabilitation monitoring, gloves for AR (Augmented Reality) etc.
• Printed Gas Sensor : These sensors are used to measure air quality in indoors and outdoors.
They are compact in size and consume less power.
• Printed biometric Sensor : These sensors are based on electro-chemical principle.
They are used to measure electrical impulses of human being such as brain activity, heart rate, respiration rate,
muscle activity etc.
• Matrix sensor : It is mainly used in capacitive sensing applications.
It measures change in electric current to be supplied to each column or row rather than voltages.
Advantages of Printed Sensors
Following are the benefits or advantages of Printed Sensors:
➨They are very thin and flexible.
➨They are manufactured in large scale which results into cost effective production.
➨Their flexible shape and printing methodology help in customised printing as per different applications. They are used for rapid prototyping.
➨Printed sensors are used to create smaller size flexible products. Moreover due to smaller sizes, they can easily be integrated with other components.
➨Printed sensors respond faster to stimuli.
Disadvantages of Printed Sensors
Following are the drawbacks or disadvantages of Printed Sensors:
➨These sensors offer lower performance compare to conventional sensors.
➨These sensors offer shorter life cycle compare to conventional sensors.
➨Require latest manufacturing technologies for production of such sensors.
➨Thinned dies are difficult to manage. Moreover it is hard to attach with printed traces.