Design and Implementation of a PCB-Based Torque Sensor With a Spiral Sensing Pattern

This article presents a novel torque senor, which functions according to the deformation of a printed circuit board that carries sensitive elements and can also serve as a sensor. The specially designed spiral copper pattern changes its resistance proportionally to the applied torque. Analyses, simulations, and experiments validate our design successfully. Compared with traditional strain gauge-type sensors at similar capacity, ±30 N m, our device shows the same high linearity, 99.8%, better accuracy, and in a much smaller size. Advantages include low inertia, high linearity, low cost, and the feasibility of rapid mass production.