An electrostatic Method of Moments (MoM) physics engine and real-time visualization tool for modeling, calibrating, and testing capacitive tactile sensor matrices.
Designing capacitive tactile arrays involves managing complex parasitic capacitance, fringing fields, and spatial crosstalk. This simulator bridges the gap between theoretical electrostatics and real-world hardware design.
It uses a Method of Moments (MoM) solver with image-charge theory to pre-calculate physics coefficients, which are then fed into a real-time superposition engine to emulate real hardware operations.
- Rigorous Electromagnetics: Implements analytical patch integrations and MoM sovlers for self-capacitance, ZIF pads, and coplanar flex traces.
- Spatial Crosstalk Modeling: Simulates mechanical force-spreading and electrical edge/corner coupling between taxels.
- Interactive Diagnostic GUI: A real-time Pygame visualiser featuring three distinct operational views:
- RAW Mode: Visualise absolute capacitance (pF) to check hardware limits and CDC saturation.
- DELTA Mode: Emulates firmware baseline subtraction to isolate pure touch signals (fF).
- FORCE Mode: Displays the raw physical mechanical input (N) across the grid.
- Install dependencies:
pip install -r requirements.txt - Run the calibration script to generate the physics coefficients:
python3 calibrate.py - Launch the interactive GUI:
python3 gui_sim.py
All physical dimensions, material properties (Young's Modulus, relative permittivity), and hardware limits can be tuned directly in config.ini.
For a deep dive into the underlying mathematics check out the docs/mathematical_model.md.