Surrey Sensors Ltd. is delighted to announce that we have successfully tested our new nano-Newton force transducer prototype! Using a piezoresistive silicon bridge sensing element and our proprietary small-signal conditioning system, we have demonstrated sensitivities of more than 350,000 V/N. We are also very excited to add that the system has the capability of resolving two components of the force direction!
This system is not yet in production, but we hope to have the first units available shortly to add to our catalogue. If you have a need to measure extremely small forces, we’d love to hear from you!
This sensor responds to forces applied along the side of a small fibre protruding from a hole in the sensor casing. The fibre, at about 400 microns in diameter, acts something like ‘artificial hair‘ or ‘artificial whiskers‘, responding to touch in two dimensions. This sensor was originally conceived for use in detecting aerodynamic skin friction drag (a notoriously difficult quantity to measure), but has numerous possible applications in metrology, process control, automation and robotics.
