Capacitive Sensor Operation Part 1: The BasicsPart 1 of this two-part article reviews the concepts and theory of capacitive sensing to help to optimize capacitive sensor performance. Part 2 of this article will discuss how to put these concepts to work.Noncontact capacitive sensors measure the changes in an electrical property called capacitance. Capacitance describes how two conductive objects with a space between them respond to a voltage difference applied to them. A voltage applied to the conductors creates an electric field between them, causing positive and negative charges to collect on each object Capacitive sensors use an alternating voltage that causes the charges to continually reverse their positions. The movement of the charges creates an alternating electric current that is detected by the sensor. The amount of current flow is determined by the capacitance, and the capacitance is determined by the surface area and proximity of the conductive objects. Larger and closer objects cause greater current than smaller and more distant objects. Capacitance is also affected by the type of nonconductive material in the gap between the objects. Technically speaking, the capacitance is directly proportional to the surface area of the objects and the dielectric constant of the material between them, and inversely proportional to the distance between them as shown.:In typical capacitive sensing applications, the probe or sensor is one of the conductive objects and the target object is the other. (Using capacitive sensors to sense plastics and other insulators will be discussed in the second part of this article.) The sizes of the sensor and the target are assumed to be constant, as is the material bet...
