Development of Material‐Integrated Actuator‐Sensor‐Arrays for Obstacle Sensing

The specific manufacturing processes of fiber‐reinforced plastics (FRP) enable a seamless integration of sensors and actuators, allowing realization of tasks that are additional to the main load bearing functionality, for example, obstacle distance sensing. Through the integration of several distributed piezoelectric actuators into a FRP component and their time‐shifted actuation, a directional plate wave can be generated. The interaction of the plate wave with the surrounding medium induces a sound wave, which − reflected from an obstacle − returns toward the component and forms a plate wave, that is, detected by another integrated transducer array. Since the time between the generation of the initial wave and the reflected wave appearance is a linear function of the distance to the obstacle, an appropriate evaluation enables the realization of the obstacle distance sensing functionality. Presented experimental investigations are conducted to confirm the feasibility of the above described operational principle. It is shown that a directional generation of plate waves and their radiation in surrounding medium can be achieved using a suitable actuator‐sensor arrangement. The operating principle is successfully demonstrated for exemplary textile‐reinforced composite plate with integrated piezoceramic actuator‐sensor transducer arrays.