Tailoring Thin‐Film Piezoelectrics for Crash Sensing

Abstract Crash sensing and its assessment play a pivotal role in autonomous vehicles for preventing fatal casualties. Existing crash sensors are severely bottlenecked by sluggish response time, rigid mechanical components, and space constraints. Miniaturized sensors embedded with custom‐tailored nanomaterials upholds potential to overcome these limitations. In this article, piezoelectric Zinc‐Oxide thin film as a crash sensing layer is integrated onto a flexible metal‐alloy cantilever. Material characterization studies are conducted to confirm piezoelectric property of sputtered ZnO film. The piezoelectric d ₃₁ coefficient value of ZnO film was 7.2 pm V^–1. The ZnO sensing element is firmly mounted on a scaled car model and used in a crash sensing experimental set‐up. A comprehensive theoretical analysis for two different real scenarios (nearly elastic and nearly inelastic collision) of crash events followed by experimental study is discussed. The crash sensor's output exhibits a linear relationship with magnitude of impact forces experienced at crash events. The response time of ZnO crash sensor is 18.2 ms, and it exhibits a sensitivity of 28.7 mV N^–1. The developed crash sensor has potential to replace bulk material sensors owing to its faster response time, high sensitivity, and compactness as the demand for crash sensors in next‐generation automobile industries is progressively growing.