Preliminary Tests with Screen-Printed Piezoresistive Pressure Sensors on PET and Textile Substrates

The search for more practical and economically advantageous solutions to produce flexible and printable pressure sensors, is giving rise to new approaches with promising results. The production of conductive and piezoresistive inks for application on flexible and stretchable substrates is a sign of this evolution. In this paper, we propose to analyze the results of some calibration tests, performed with pressure-sensitive piezoresistive sensors screen-printed on PET and textile substrates. The results showed that these sensors generally follow a trend with a strong approximation to the linear model. The textile sensor is the most linear (R-2 = 0.99), and PET sensor (S1) has a higher sensitivity (40.4 mV/kPa) than the other sensors. Results obtained are, in general, within the expected behavior for the piezoresistive ink used and allowed for comparing between sensors printed in PET and textile substrates. A positive factor to consider lies in the possibility of using the screen-printing technology on different substrates, preferably in textile fabric.