A Two-Step Readout Technique for Large-Array Resistive Sensors

Large-array resistive sensors have nowadays found various applications in a variety of medical and industrial systems. In this paper, a two-step readout procedure is proposed, which increases the average speed of the readout for the input patterns, located in an areamuchsmaller than the entire array. In the proposedmethod, during the first step, only a spatially coarse scan is performed where the location of the input is roughly estimated. Then, during the second step, the values of the resistorsare accuratelymeasured, justwithin the allocated area. Measurement results of a 52x44 resistive array used in a plantar pressure scanner show that the average readout time for a gait pattern is reduced from 23 ms for the conventional circuit to 5.7 ms using the proposed technique.