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Sensor Module Design

Tactile Trackpad: High-Density Pressure Sensing for Laptop and Gaming Input

A tactile sensing module that explores closely packed barometer-based sensors for high-resolution touch and pressure detection. Its dense sensor arrangement gives precise spatial and force sensitivity, suited to next-generation laptop trackpads and gaming interfaces.

A 36-sensor pressure array

This tactile trackpad module features a high-density array of 36 MEMS barometric pressure sensors within a compact 50 × 65 mm form factor, enabling high-resolution tactile sensing. Although designed primarily as a tactile trackpad, the platform has potential applications in robotics, advanced human-machine interfaces, haptic research and other pressure-sensing systems.

The primary objective is to investigate the performance characteristics of dense pressure-sensor arrays: achievable sampling frequency, spatial resolution, sensitivity, noise behaviour and potential hysteresis effects. The study also explores other factors that influence measurement accuracy, responsiveness and overall performance in high-density tactile sensing.

Populated tactile sensing module with 36 sensors
Figure 1: The populated tactile sensing module with MEMS barometric pressure sensors.
Board layout of the tactile trackpad
Figure 2: Board layout of the tactile trackpad module with 36 pressure sensors.

Controller board

A dedicated controller board interfaces with the sensor array and handles data acquisition. It is responsible for sensor communication, data collection and transfer to a host system for processing and analysis. The complete controller design, including schematics, PCB layout files, firmware and documentation, is open source on GitHub.

Status

At present only the basic functionality of the module has been validated, as development was paused for other commitments. The communication protocol, firmware enhancements and the silicone surface molding for the final trackpad interface are still under development. Schematics, evaluation results and further details will be shared once testing and evaluation are complete.

Possible applications

Robotics, haptic feedback systems, gaming interfaces, smart input devices, gesture-recognition systems and other applications that need high-resolution tactile sensing.