Bebop Sensors brings sensor to fabric
February 2015 – We had a chance to meet with Keith McMillen CEO of BeBop Sensors. at their offices in Berkeley CA. Keith is well known in the musical instrument business as the CEO of Keith McMillen Instruments which is a long time musical keyboard maker. Leveraging some of the technology and engineering that was used in the keyboards, he has started the standalone sensor company. The company is targeting OEMs for both standard product and custom sensor systems that include the full control and calibration electronics.
BeBop Sensors Fabric Printed Smartphone Controller
Their core technology is using a fabric that is piezo-resistive and utilizes circuits that have inks that are conductive, resistive, and dielectric to create a custom pressure and touch sensor. The design and size of the sensors vary by application, and the technology is compatible with both standard tension fabrics and stretchable fabrics that contain lycra. The sensor technology is quite stable and has been in production for several years, producing millions of units. Their printed electronics capability includes multi-layer designs with double digit stacks of conductors and insulators all on the fabric substrate.
They use a proprietary Monolithic Fabric Sensor Technology that integrates all of the sensors, traces and electronics into a single piece of fabric, so it is a full solution with just the standard interface sensor data being presented to the rest of the system. As a result the sensors comprehend force, location, size, weight, shape, motion and presence across any size, resolution and geometry. The BeBop technology senses and displays 3D maps of pressure, bend, location, rotation, angle, and torsion which presents a measure of the physicality of the user. This is different from other wearable sensors that measure physiology (EKG, EMG) of the user.
The technology can be used for slider controls & push buttons under single point touch configurations. The designs can also be configured in multi-point arrangements and movement tracking applications. The sensors are durable and applicable to the wearables marketplace by being washable.
