Designing a Capacitive Sensing System - a Survey

Through the years, sensors took a very important part in our lives. They help us to implement goals or simplify many things. We use them in many different ways and many things would not be as easy as they are without them. Especially in relation to Smart Environments and Human-Computer-Interactions, sensors take over several important and essential tasks. Therefor, we want to show the utility and importance of sensing systems in relation to these application areas. In this thesis, the focus is to find a general process chain on how to build sensing systems in general, and then focusing on capacitive sensing systems. This is done by reviewing literature and related work about general design approaches, systems using other sensors, which we will introduce as well, and then focusing on systems using capacitive sensors with a special focus on capacitive sensing on flexible surfaces. Among others, we elaborate several key aspects, which we use as a guideline to chose the most suitable design. Furthermore, a benchmark is given, which underlines our key aspects and can be used as well to help us to achieve our aim. Moreover, based on the guidelines, designs and techniques we introduce in relation to their application area, we will be able to point out similarities between the presented systems and compare the systems based on these factors and the characteristics we expect from our design. Finally, after comparing them and show their advantages and limitations, we will be able to recommend a design and justify it trough our learned lessons.