Methods to correct for creep in elastomer-based sensors

Elastomer materials such as PDMS and SU-8 have been used as mechanical springs in sensors and actuators. A disadvantage of elastomer-based structures is that they slightly creep with time, especially for low frequency and static applications, which causes hysteresis up to a few percents in the sensor signal. In this paper, by thoroughly studying the creep process and model, we propose some novel signal processing methods to correct for the creep in real time. The methods have been successfully applied in an elastomer-based magnetoresistive accelerometer, which shows that the error due to creep has been reduced from 3% down to 0.08%.