Combining organic and printed electronics in Hybrid System in Foil (HySiF) based smart skin for robotic applications

Abstract

Hybrid System in Foil (HySiF) technology has the potential to combine compact high-performance circuit integration on thin, flexible silicon chips with thin-film large-area components jointly on a polymer foil substrate. In this manuscript, such a HySiF technology demonstrator known as Smart Skin is presented. It contains bending stress sensors along with other modular technology components, such as display, wireless communication and thin-film battery, implemented in a thin foil substrate mounted onto a bionic adaptive robot gripper. For demonstration purposes, we have opted for two distinctly different smart-skin systems, i.e. one connected by wires and the second working autonomously. Here, we have presented the fabrication details and test results of the first mentioned fully functional smart-skin demonstrator. For the second generation of smart skin, the feasibility of combining a matrix of thin-film strain gauges and organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) along with embedding a silicon chip inside the foil is evaluated.