Capacitive Sensing Techniques and Considerations

While there are a vast number of ways in which engineers can design with capacitive sensing to create innovative interfaces, engineers must also understand the many ways the underlying technology can be manipulated to maximize sensitivity, accuracy, and responsiveness of the sensors. This article discusses, in detail, many of the sensing methodologies that transform sensor output into useful data that can be used to determine how a user is interacting with a device. The article discusses strengths, weaknesses, and implementations of established sensingtechniques such as E-field Sensing, Charge Transfer, Force-Sensing Resistor (FSR), Relaxation Oscillator, Capacitance-to-Digital Conversion (CDC), and Dual-Ramp. It also introduces two new sensing methodologies, Successive Approximation and Sigma-Delta Modulator. To read more on this topic, click the download link above or visit Mobile Handset DesignLine.