Beyond voltage dividers: resistive sensor implementation for tactile control of musical instruments and other systems

Commercially available resistive sensors such as force sensitive resistors and linear touch potentiometers can be integrated into microcontroller circuits with the use of simple voltage divider circuits. This allows physical user interfaces to offer continuous tactile control in the form of pressing onto the sensor with a finger or other actuator without increasing the complexity of the underlying circuit. In the case of the force sensitive resistor, this implementation is not ideal because of the nonlinear relationship between force and output voltage. In the case of the linear touch potentiometer, this implementation works for single-point position sensing, but does not allow for multiple sensing points. This thesis will compare several different circuit implementations for these sensors to show the benefits and drawbacks of each and describe a method that allows certain linear touch potentiometers to detect two points simultaneously instead of just one. The use of these improved sensor circuits in electronic musical instrument control will be discussed as an important application.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Takikawa, Danny

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cheng, Zuofu

• Resistive Sensors
• Force Sensing
• Touch Sensing
• Midi
• Fsr

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Daniel Takikawa

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120466

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F120466