Display for Pressure Sensitive Fibers: Spring 2020
Summary
I aimed to create a display for an 8x8 matrix of carbon-black loaded pressure-sensitive fibers in this project. I used a series of voltage dividers to interface the pressure sensor with an Arduino microcontroller and displayed a representation of the pressure sensor on an LCD. Lines represented the individual fibers in the matrix, while a circle represented the intersection of two fibers. The color of these circles correlates to the level of pressure applied at the intersection of two fibers and, on increasing the applied pressure, the circle’s color changes from blue to green to red. Figure 1 shows a block diagram of the system.
Figure 1: Block diagram of the system
Since an 8x8 mesh of fibers was not available, I prototyped the system using a 2x3 mesh as shown in figure 2. This was my first time working with an Arduino microcontroller and through this project, I gained experience using object orientated programming for embedded applications.
Figure 2: Picture of the Prototype