Prototype inspection day (PID) was a success. We received valuable feedback from a variety of judges with expertise ranging in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and material science. For PID, we completed a simple board design to test capacitive sensing and enclosed it within a 3D-printed body. We also prepared a trifold design with all the necessary information for judges to understand our problem and see what we are planning to do to solve the problem.
During our presentation, we demonstrated a live demo of the backer detector represented in the image on the right. The monitor is showing the real-time capacitance measurements from the device. We were alternating between a defect area to a non-defect area which is represented in the two different peaks alternating on the monitor. The detector senses in the pF range with fF differences.
We have developed a plan to improve the shielding of the sensor since the sensor is super sensitive. Any inputs to the system like touching the metal plate to the pressure applied on the device handle can significantly increase noise in the capacitance readings. In the upcoming weeks, we plan on testing some shielded sensors options and looking into multiple sensor array or heterogenous testing (potentially eddy current) to have higher result resolution.