Tailoring Thin‐Film Piezoelectrics for Crash Sensing

Abstract

Crash sensing and its assessment play a pivotal role in autonomous vehicles for preventing fatal casualties. Existing crash sensors are severely bottlenecked by sluggish response time, rigid mechanical components, and space constraints. Miniaturized sensors embedded with custom-tailored nanomaterials upholds potential to overcome these limitations. In this article, piezoelectric Zinc-Oxide thin film as a crash sensing layer is integrated onto a flexible metal-alloy cantilever. Material characterization studies are conducted to confirm piezoelectric property of sputtered ZnO film. The piezoelectric d coefficient value of ZnO film was 7.2 pm V . The ZnO sensing element is firmly mounted on a scaled car model and used in a crash sensing experimental set-up. A comprehensive theoretical analysis for two different real scenarios (nearly elastic and nearly inelastic collision) of crash events followed by experimental study is discussed. The crash sensor's output exhibits a linear relationship with magnitude of impact forces experienced at crash events. The response time of ZnO crash sensor is 18.2 ms, and it exhibits a sensitivity of 28.7 mV N . The developed crash sensor has potential to replace bulk material sensors owing to its faster response time, high sensitivity, and compactness as the demand for crash sensors in next-generation automobile industries is progressively growing.

A PEDOT:PSS/MXene-based actuator with self-powered sensing function by incorporating a photo-thermoelectric generator

“…17 For example, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) [18][19][20] and piezoelectric nanogenerators (PENG) [21][22][23] that convert small or low-frequency mechanical energy into electrical energy are considered promising technologies for self-powered sensing and energy harvesting. The self-powered devices are widely used in applications such as medical monitoring, 24,25 self-powered sensing, 22,26 and humanmachine interaction. [27][28][29] Nevertheless, long-term mechanical impingement and extrusion deformation will signicantly degrade the durability of these self-powered devices.…”

Bacterial Nanobionics via 3D Printing

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