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Capacitance is determined by Dielectric dielectric (the material in the gap) Area, and Gap. Capacitance increases when Dielectric or Area increase. Capacitance decreases when the Gap increases.

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 where CF is finger's capacitance and CP is the sum of the distributed capacitance on the sensor. This is how sensor can calculate if the finger is on the sensor as seen in figure 1

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Figure 1

Capacitance sensor activation

There are several integrated capacitance-to-digital converters (CDCs) that can interface with external capacitance sensors. They can implement functions such as capacitive buttons, scroll bars or wheels. Two of these are the AD7142 and the AD7143.

When the sensor is not active the AD714x sensors measures the capacitance value as ambient value as seen from figure 2. As previously explained in Position sensor page, the capacitive increases when the finger is touching screen or a button and it decrease when finger is moving away of the screen or button.

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Figure 2

Figure 2 shows a situation, where the ambient capacitance value does not change. The ambient capacitance changes constantly and is unpredictably due to changes in humidity and temperature. If the ambient capacitance value changes sufficiently, it can affect the sensor activation.

Applications

So where do we use capacitive sensing technology, for example the first thing that comes in everyone’s mind is of course, the mobile phones touch screen or tablets touch screen. This is the most common application when using capacitive sensing in everyday life.

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Figure 3

Other example applications made with this technology are used in industrial applications such as position measurement, dynamic motion, thickness measurement, nonconductive thickness and assembly testing.

Position measurement is the most common one when using capacitive sensors in industrial purpose. The outputs always indicate the size of the gap between the sensor's sensing surface and the target. When the probe is stationary, any changes in the output are directly interpretted as changes in position of the target.

This technique is used in: automation required precise location, semiconductor processing, final assembly of precision equipment, precision stage positioning.

One usefull application with capacitive sensors is the assemly line testing, since capacitive sensors have a  high sensitivity on conducting materials than on nonconducting materials, so its easy to find out a multi piece part that have conducting and nonconducting materials inside, the output will wary from defected products for example one product is missing a piece or two (for example see figure 4).

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Figure 4

Terms:

dielectric= An electrically insulating or nonconducting material considered for its electric susceptibility, i.e. its property of polarization when exposed to an external electric field.

capacitance= The property of being able to collect a charge of electricity.

Sources

1. http://www.analog.com/library/analogdialogue/archives/40-10/cap_sensors.html
2. http://www.capacitive-sensing.com/capacitive-sensor-theory.html
3. http://www.lionprecision.com/tech-library/appnotes/cap-0030-thickness-measurement.html
4. http://www.capacitive-sensing.com/
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitive_sensing