Highly sensitive biomimetic flow sensor arrays

In this paper, we report, to the best of our knowledge [1], the most sensitive artificial hair-based flow-sensor arrays operating in air, to date. Artificial hair sensors are bio-inspired from crickets’ cerci, one of nature’s best in sensing small air flows. The presented hair sensor arrays aim to realize higher sensitivity by means of model-based design optimizations and fabricated with advanced MEMS technologies. The presented artificial hair-sensor arrays display a clear figure-of-eight response and show remarkable sensitivities to oscillating air flows down to 0.85 mm/s that surpass noise levels even at 1 kHz operational bandwidths.