Improving the HMI Experience by
Enhancing High-Resolution Touch Sensors with Advanced Inks
A Project between Motherson and Dycotec Materials
EDITOR: JULIAN WESCH & JESSICA GARFIELD
With the rising popularity of smartphones in the past decade, touch screen interfaces have become the preferred way of controlling smart devices. This development has also affected the automotive sector, which had to rethink the interior design of vehicles to create a more comfortable and safer touch interface. In addition, customer satisfaction largely depends on how easily and effectively people are able to interact with their car. Hence, the automotive sector is looking for ways to improve sensing technology and adapt it to the automotive design.
As one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing automotive suppliers, Motherson is continuously striving for innovation. Within Motherson, the Motherson Innovations Lights GmbH (MIL) focuses on topics around screen printing and lighting technologies and is looking into ink solutions for capacitive touch sensors . Specifically, the team is interested in conductors that offer good optical characteristics, such as high transparency and minimum color shift. In order to integrate such conductive ink into the existing printing processes and advance in this area, Motherson approached Dycotec Materials.
The startup from the UK specializes in electronic inks and printed
electronics devices for a variety of industries.
The Project
Motherson initiated a comparison of several conductive inks, including Dycotec’s technology, which showed promising performance advantages over competitors. To test the compatibility of Dycotec’s conductive ink with Motherson’s existing production processes, the pilot partners conducted a production trial with a transparent capacitive touch sensor.
Outcome
The outcome of the project was appreciated by both parties and the conductive characteristics of Dycotec’s ink enabled the production trial of several highly transmissive and high-resolution touch sensors.
The project teams were able to overcome occurring issues regarding the design of the sensor and demonstrated the expected performance of the touch sensor: The transparency improved by almost 10% while the conductivity also increased by more than 60%, using the same sensor pattern.
Future Outlook
Possible next steps for Motherson and Dycotec would be a testing phase for reliability and durability, as well as adapting the processes to mass production. Both parties would then advance the project by integrating the developed touch sensor into the automotive interior production process, providing OEMs and ultimately end-customers with a new premium smart surface experience. Furthermore, the technology offers the possibility to
produce larger sensors that could be up to one meter in width, enabling new ways of interactivity between the user and smart surfaces.
Acknowledgements
We would like to express our sincere thanks to Thomas Nugraha (Motherson), Martin Fiebrandt (Motherson), Richard Dixon (Dycotec Materials) and Mitchell Kitt (Dycotec Materials).
About STARTUP AUTOBAHN
STARTUP AUTOBAHN powered by Plug and Play is an innovation platform moderating an in-depth and curated collaboration between core partners from industry and young tech companies.The program is stage agnostic and designed to accelerate startups by connecting them to the right business units of our Corporate Partners in order to lay the groundwork of a successful cooperation and eventually outstanding pilot projects, implementations or investments.
Plug and Play Tech Center, Mercedes-Benz AG, ARENA2036, University of Stuttgart, ZF, DXC Technology, Porsche, BASF, Webasto, Motherson, DPDHL, Bosch, Schaeffler, STMicroelectronics, Murata, AGC, Hyundai, Linde, BP, Wieland, Faurecia, Eberspächer, ADAC, Sekisui, Plastic Omnium, Zenzic, Maxion, Novelis, ITT, Grupo Antolin, Huf Group, CEAT
Contact for this project
Johannes Dalheimer, Ventures Analyst, STARTUP AUTOBAHN powered by Plug and Play, j.dalheimer@pnptc.com
Urszula Kosidlo, Open Innovation Manager, Motherson, urszula.kosidlo@motherson-innovations.com
Kerstin Gerdes, Senior Management Innovations and Program Management,
Motherson, kerstin.gerdes@motherson-innovations.com
