Micro Capacitive Sensor

The goal of this project is to develop a printed circuit board (PCB) that utilizes capacitive sensors and an off-the-shelf capacitive to-digital-converter (CDC) to detect and monitor micro entities. The monitoring process is an autonomous process that displays a plot of real-time capacitance values.

Background
The counting and classifying of particles on the micrometer scale is expensive if automated and difficult if done using non-automated methods. An inexpensive automated counting and classification method for small particles needs to be created to lower the cost and increase the ease of use for this process.

Deliverables

 * PCB designed with CDC chips and multiple capacitive sensor designs
 * An easy to use graphing method that accurately displays capacitance vs time on a PC from the CDC chip
 * A capacitive sensor design, or multiple designs, that successfully detects micro-particles

Assembly Operations/Schematic