Reinforced piezoresistive pressure sensor for ocean depth measurements

Abstract Depth/pressure measurements in the ocean are of utmost importance to better understand the ocean processes, for maritime security and for tsunami wave detection. In this work, a reinforced piezoresistive pressure sensor with double diaphragms and Wheatstone bridges is proposed to achieve higher sensitivity, wider operating range and temperature compensation in ocean depth measurements. The reinforced design showed higher sensitivity (by 10–15%) and wider operating pressure capability (by 2–2.2 times) compared to the conventional single diaphragm piezoresistive design. The reinforced sensor design was validated by measuring the performance of a two-element pressure sensor, which showed sensitivity between 0.13 and 0.74 mV/(V psi) and a full scale span increased by approximately two times.

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