Piezoceramic cantilever sensor design for weak-impact detection on plates

A piezoelectric cantilever type sensor for locating the precise weak-impact or touch position on a plate is presented in this paper. Since the importance of human-computer interface such as a touch panel system has been rapidly increasing recently, this study could suggest an appropriate sensor for the detection of a weak-impact point effectively and accurately for such a system. This sensor detects the out-of-plane vibration of a panel when a touch with a finger or pen is applied on it. The sensor is made with a steel beam and a single crystal PMN-PT patch is bonded on the beam, which is designed to detect the base vibration of the panel. The sensor was designed, manufactured to verify the detect ability of a weak-impact and attached on two different plates of a glass of 400 × 400 × 4 mm and a wooden MDF of 600 × 600 × 9 mm. The experiment result of the sensor was compared with that of an accelerometer which can also be used for the same purpose and shows clear weak-impact responses with a narrow-band property at its resonant frequency. It is expected that the cantilever type sensor in this study could be applied to make a simple flat plate into a touch panel when the time difference of arrivals method is used to locate the weak-impact point.