Printed embedded transducers including additional on-substrate signal evaluation

In this work, we present a method for the manufacturing and readout of printed strain gauges, as well as capacitive sensors on precoated sheet steel substrates. The state of the art for both sensor elements is integration into a given system by gluing pre-fabricated sensors on a foil onto a substrate. This has, however, inherent disadvantages in terms of force coupling within the bent substrate to the glued strain gauge sensor. For capacitive elements this leads to a disadvantage that not every degree of surface integration is possible. Furthermore, the additional material interface can lead to delamination problems. The method presented in this work solves these problems by printing the sensor layer directly on top of the pre applied organic coating and thereby omitting the glue as well as the extra substrate layer from the conventional buildup.