The optimization design of thin piezoelectric force sensor and theoretical analysis of static loading estimation

In the development of automation industry, external force detection/monitoring is essential for the safety of human and machines. To detect or measure these forces easily, a static loading sensor is required. However, commercially available sensors are too bulky and cause installation difficulties in automated machines. A piezoelectric element is an electro-mechanical component wildly used for actuator sensing or harvesting applications. In this paper, a 10 N capacity thin piezoelectric force sensor is designed and tested for external static load detection. This paper considers that larger strain made by an external force on a proposed piezoelectric sensor generates higher voltage, thereby increasing its force estimation accuracy. Meanwhile, in most piezoelectric force sensors, a cantilever beam mechanism is usually adopted for its simple structure; however, large deformations seen in cantilever piezoelectric sensors are not proportional to its measuring accuracy nor force bearing capacity. Therefore, in this paper, an amplified trapezoidal shape mechanism is designed to convert external vertical load into horizontal displacement deformation in order to obtain higher voltage generation. The Taguchi optimization design method is proposed to analyze the key factors that affect the amplified mechanism design of the piezoelectric sensor. Moreover, static loading force applied on a piezoelectric component generates constant voltage that eventually decreases with time. This is because of its internal electric impedance property, which causes difficulty in static loading force estimation. To represent the theoretical model of the static force estimation in this paper, a chain scattering description matrix of a two-port network was proposed to represent the electric impedance in relation to the mechanical properties’ variation. The measured results demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed theoretical method which implies that the external force can be estimated by measuring its electric impedance variation, particularly the shift in resonance frequency Therefore, based on the developed theoretical model, a driving voltage with fixed frequency can measure its electric current in the same time, thereby achieving the external force monitoring technology.