Tactile Pressure Sensors Calibration with the Use of High Pressure Zones

A simple and cost-effective calibration procedure for piezoresistive ink tactile pressure sensors is crucial for their use in geotechnical research applications. Such a procedure should be applicable in field conditions and require a minimum amount of equipment. The paper describes a new method for calibrating tactile pressure sensors with 8-bit sensels’ output. The method is based on the approximation of a single sensel output and consideration of multiple calibration patches. The advantage of the developed method is using local high-pressure zones in calibration patches. The developed method has been successfully applied in calibration of two 5051-350 Tekscan sensors by means of three dead weights: 2 kg, 5 kg and 10 kg. One calibrated sensor was new, and another one had been previously used in the harsh environment of the ice tank in the experiment with model ice. The calibration curves for these two sensors did not reveal a significant difference. For 72% of the 150 obtained load patches in calibration, the absolute discrepancy of actual and calibrated load occurred to be less than 5%.