2019 Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies (i-PACT)
Automated V-I Characterization of
Electronic Devices Using Arduino Board
Aryan Jain Bidisha Kashyap
Electronics & Comm. Engineering Electronics & Comm. Engineering
CIT Kokrajhar, India CIT Kokrajhar, India
Email: jaryan0896@gmail.com Email: bidisha258@gmail.com
Abstract— Characterization of electronic devices is one of the
main objectives in an electronics lab, where the data from lab
measurements are compared with that of theoretical
predictions. This can ensure detection of faulty electronic
devices before connecting them in a bigger circuitry. On the
other hand, manually taking repetitive measurements using
power supplies and multimeters at various operating points of a
given device can be laborious, especially when many such
devices has to be tested. In this paper we present a fully
automated Arduino based system which does not use any
external instruments other than power supplies. Once an
electronic device is positioned and appropriate modes are
chosen, the system will plot its required characteristics and
extract parameters on an excel sheet in a serially interfaced PC.
We have successfully carried out the fully automated V-I
characterization of a diode, transfer and output characteristics
of a MOSFET and the input and output characteristics of a BJT.
The individual circuits and their associated scripts are combined
using device selection switches for better utilization of system
resources.
Keywords— V-I Characterization, Arduino, Automation, Data
acquisition, Low pass filter
I. INTRODUCTION
To better understand the operation and/or test any electronic
device, it is essential to practically perform the V-I
characterization of an electronic device. Working with faulty
devices in a big circuit is truly frustrating. On the other hand,
manual characterization process is time-taking and laborious.
To speed up the characterization procedure an analog device
tester is required. Automation of device characterization will
also reduce the human errors in the measurement processes.
A semi-automated system was proposed by S. Weis [1] in
which an Arduino microcontroller acted as a data acquisition
interface. Since the Arduino microcontroller kits [2] are now
cost effective, this is indeed an economic approach for small
laboratories. In recent years, there were many proposals to use
Arduino kits for engineering educational purposes [3-8]. In
Weis’ system, the signals to the device under characterization
were given from an external function generator and the results
were plotted using MATLAB software in a PC.
In the work presented here, a fully automated V-I
characterization of electronic devices such as junction diode,
978-1-5386-8189-3/19/$31.00 © 2019 IEEE
Agile Mathew
Electronics & Comm. Engineering
CIT Kokrajhar, India
Email: a.mathew@cit.ac.in
BJT and MOSFET based on Arduino microcontroller is
developed. The voltages for dc analysis of a given device
under test were generated using Arduino’s PWM outputs with
the help of external low pass filter circuits. Since the
Arduino’s analog-to-digital converter has a dynamic range
from 0 to 5V, we have kept the dc analysis within these limits.
This dynamic range could also be extended by proper voltage
scaling (amplifier/attenuators) at the interface between
Arduino inputs/outputs and external circuitry. Apart from the
low pass filters, the system also requires some amount of
supporting circuitry to measure currents through various
terminals of the device [9]. The data is collected into an Excel
file as it is a much cheaper and popular option in comparison
with that of MATLAB. Microsoft Excel Commander 2.1 by
R. Valgolio [10] is utilized to take care of the serial port
interface between Arduino and the PC. The data, as being
obtained in a tabular form inside the Excel file, can easily be
plotted using inbuilt commands in the software. Various
parameters like trans-conductance, current gain, dynamic
resistance... etc can be easily be extracted from these plots.
Accuracy of the plots can be changed by controlling the
voltage steps in the dc analysis through modifications in the
programming. We have employed device selection switches
that can establish and isolate appropriate connections when a
particular device is needed to be tested. In addition to this,
two digital inputs into the kit were appropriately set in order
to choose the right subroutine inside the Arduino program.
Any faulty devices can be easily recognized by comparing the
obtained characteristics with that of the standard one.
II. METHODLOGY
The block diagram of automated device characterization
system based on Arduino UNO board is shown in Fig. (1).
The Arduino takes digital inputs S0 and S1 to choose the right
subroutine corresponding to the device selected for
characterization. Since there are no analog output ports
available with Arduino UNO, we have used the digital PWM
outputs along with low pass filters to generate dc voltages
corresponding to different operating points. These voltages
are then applied to the device through current limiting
resistors which are part of the supporting circuitry.
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 2019 Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies (i-PACT)

Fig. 2. Flow chart of the programming

III. CIRCUIT DIAGRAM

The Fig. (3) Shows the combined external circuit diagram for
automated characterization of the three devices viz. diode,
BJT and MOSFET. We have used the Arduino analog inputs
pins A0-A3 to read various voltages from the circuit. As can
Fig. 1. Block diagram of the system
be verified, the ground terminal is kept common for all the
devices.
The supporting circuitry also provides us with the ability to
measure currents by measuring the voltages across various
resistors. These voltages are measured using the analog input
pins A0 to A3. The manual switch array shown in the block
diagram is used to disconnect or connect the required pins of
the different electronic devices. Only the device that is to be
tested should be connected and the rest should be
disconnected at the same time. For the characterization of
these devices viz. diode, BJT and MOSFET, only a maximum
of two filters are needed at any given time. Therefore these
filter outputs are multiplexed using supporting circuitry and
device selection switch array in order to efficiently use the
resources. The output of the Arduino is connected to a PC
using the serial port and the data is written into an Excel sheet Fig. 3. Circuit diagram for V-I
in tabular format using Microsoft Excel Commander 2.1. Characterization of electronic devices
S0 S1 Functionality
To do diode characterization, we manually connect switch D1
0 0 Halt and open circuit B1, B2, M1 and M2. This will isolate any
current flow into other devices. If BJT has to be characterized,
0 1 Diode Subroutine
the switches B1 and B2 alone will be connected and all others
1 0 BJT Subroutine will be disconnected. Similarly, M1 and M2 alone is
connected for the characterization of MOSFET. The working
1 1 MOSFET Subroutine of the external circuit is individually explained in the
following sections.
Table. 1
The Arduino programming flowchart is shown in Fig. (2).
After initialization of the various input and output pins, the
I. Low Pass Filter Design
program continues to run in loops. Each time when it enters
the loop, status of digital inputs S0 and S1 are first read and
The circuit diagram of an OpAmp based 2nd order low pass
then corresponding subroutine is chosen accordingly as
shown in Table 1. With two device selection inputs, three Butterworth filter is shown in Fig. (4). It’s cut-off frequency,
devices could be characterized. In general, with N such
inputs, we can select 2N -1 devices as one of the combination fc= (1)
√
(here S0S1=00) is used for halt operation.

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 2019 Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies (i-PACT)
Fig. 4: 2nd order low pass Butterworth filter
Since the frequency of PWM input signal to the filter is
1KHZ, to eliminate as much ripple as possible we designed
the filter cutoff frequency to be very low. For R1=R2=100kΩ
and C1=C2=1µF, we obtain fc as 1.59 Hz. After the removal
of all the harmonics, the output obtained on CRO for 75%
duty cycle PWM input is shown in Fig. (5).In this figure, both
the input and output signals of the filter are shown with
common ground.
Fig. 5. PWM to DC conversion
The duty cycle of the PWM output can be controlled in
the Arduino program using the analogWrite(x)command.
This will result in, percentage duty-cycle = (x/255)×100.
Therefore, to get 75% duty cycle, we should take x =191.
II. Characterization of Diode
For the automated characterization of diode, one low pass
filter is enough. This is because diode is a two terminal device
and to plot its forward characteristics we need to measure
only the voltage across the diode and the current passing
through it.
Fig. 6: Circuit diagram for V-I Characteristics of Diode
The diode voltage ‘Vd’ in volts is read by the analog pin A1
and we calculate the diode current ‘Id’ from A0 and A1
together by using the formula: Id = (Vin-Vd)/R Amps, where
R=660 kΩ. The input voltage Vin is varied by varying the
duty-cycle of PWM in steps.
III. Characterization of BJT
For the BJT, we plot the input and output characteristics in
common emitter configuration. The circuit diagram is shown
in Fig. (7). For taking the input characteristics, we keep the
filter-2 output fixed and the filter-1 output is varied in steps.
In each step, input current (IB) and input voltage (VBE) is
measured and tabulated. Here slight changes in VCE are
ignored. For output characteristics, we keep IB constant, the
filter-1 output constant and the filter-2 output is varied in
steps. In each step, the value of output current (IC) and output
voltage (VCE) is measured. Thus, we need two filters and four
analog input pins for the characterization BJT.
Fig. 7. Circuit diagram for V-I characteristics of BJT
Since the value of BJTs are very large (around 150), we use
a large current limiting cum measuring resistance (R=660kΩ)
at the input and small current limiting cum measuring
resistance at the output (R=300Ω). The value of current is
calculated by the formula: IB = ‘(VB-VBE)/R’, where R= 660
kΩ and IC = (VCC-VCE)/R mA where R=300 Ω.
IV. Characterization of MOSFET
The characterization of MOSFET is similar to that of BJT
with only difference is that it’s input dc current is always zero
due to the oxide capacitance. Therefore we can achieve
MOSFET characteristics using only three analog input
terminals.
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 2019 Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies (i-PACT)

For input characteristics, x-axis represents VBE in volts and y-

axis represents IB in micro-amperes. We are plotting the input
characteristics for four different values of VCE.

Fig. 8: Circuit diagram for MOSFET characterization

The external circuit diagram for MOSFET characterization is

shown in Fig. (8). The output of filter-1 is connected directly
to the Gate terminal of the MOSFET and the voltage VGS is Fig. 10. Input characteristics of BJT
read by the analog pin A2 of the Arduino board. For getting
the output characteristics the value of VGS is kept fixed while For output characteristics, x-axis represents VCE in volts and
the dc voltage Vdin is varied in steps. In each step, the value y-axis represents IC in milli-amperes. The output
of voltage VDS and the corresponding current ID are tabulated. characteristics are plotted for four different values of IB as
The value of ID is obtained using the formula ‘(Vdin-VDS)/R’ shown in Fig. (11).
where R=300 Ω. To measure the transfer characteristics of
MOSFET, keeping Vdin fixed, we vary VGS in steps. In each
step, measure ID as before.

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Building charts and graphs is one of the best ways to visualize

data in a clear and easily understandable manner. Microsoft
Excel Commander 2.1 enables us to interface an Excel sheet
with the Arduino through the serial communication port. As
the Arduino collects the data points sequentially, it is send to
the Excel table in the prescribed columns and they are plotted
in real time. The graphs obtained for a diode, BJT and
MOSFET are shown below. The number of data points in any Fig. 11. Output characteristics of BJT
of these following graphs could easily be increased or
decreased by changing the step size of the analog voltage. From the above figures, we can find out important parameters
of BJT such as dynamic input resistance (Ri) and dynamic
The voltage (V) versus current (I) of a forward biased p-n output resistance (Ro) as follows:
junction diode is plotted as shown in the Fig. (10).The y-axis
represents current in micro amperes and x-axis represents ∆
Dynamic output resistance, = (2)
∆
voltage in volts. The results presented here could be extended
to larger voltage and current ranges by replacing the value of
. . )
current limiting resistor in Fig. (6) to a lower value. i.e. = )
= 14.5kΩ (When = 5.47µA)
. .

The input and output characteristics of a BJT (BC547) is ∆

shown in Fig. (10) and (11) respectively. Dynamic input resistance, = (3)
∆

. . )
= )
=11.02 kΩ (When = 4.7 )
. .

Similarly common emitter current gain,

∆
β= (4)
∆

. . )
ie. β = )
=74.38
. .

The transfer and output characteristics of the MOSFET

(CD4007CN) are shown in Fig. (12) and (13) respectively.
Fig. 9. V-I characteristics of the diode. For transfer characteristics x-axis represents VGS in volts and

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 2019 Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies (i-PACT)

y-axis represents ID in milli-amperes. Transfer characteristics clarity of the plot. The data points are acquired sequentially
for four different values of VDS is shown in Fig. (12). by allowing the device under test to operate at different Q-
points and then measuring the device voltages and current.
The analog voltages required for this purpose is generated
with the help of Arduino’s PWM signal output whose duty
cycle is controlled via programming. A second order
Butterworth filter is used to convert the PWM signal to dc
voltage which then has a dynamic range of 0 to 5 volts. The
current into a terminal is measured with the help of additional
circuitry which would convert the currents into voltages
across series resistors. Microsoft Excel Commander is used
to acquire the data points from the Arduino into an excel sheet
on PC. The graphs are easily plotted in real-time using the x-
y plot commands in Excel software. Various parameters like
Fig. 12. Transfer characteristics of MOSFET input and output resistances, current gain, trans-conductance
etc. of these devices are then extracted from these
An important parameter to be determined from transfer characteristic plots.
characteristics of FET is transconductance (gm). It is defined
The automation of electronic device characterization is a
as,
∆ ,
quick way of testing the device in an electronics lab. Manual
gm = (5) characterization of electronic devices is laborious and can be
∆
frustrating if it has to be repeated for many devices. The
. . ) analog device tester we have developed is based on Arduino
gm =
)
= 0.516 mS (When = 4.7 )
. . UNO kit which is readily available and inexpensive. To
increase the speed further, we could use faster microcontroller
kits than the basic version of it. The dynamic range of
characteristics could be increased by scaling up the voltages
using proper amplifiers at the filter output stage. We can
extend the concept presented in this paper to characterize
other electronic devices also. But increasing the number of
devices may result in needing more and more number of input
and output pins in the microcontroller kit.

REFERENCES

[1] S. Weis, “Using an Arduino to measure frequency response and current-

Fig. 13. Output characteristics of MOSFET voltage device characteristics in electronics labs,” presented at the ASEE
Gulf-Southwest Section Conference, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA,
April 04, 2014.
For output characteristics of the MOSFET x-axis represents
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∆
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. .

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points in a curve. But this is at the cost of compromising the Arduino-Based IV Swinger” Udagani Chikkappa, IJSRR 2018,7(3),734-740.

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 2019 Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies (i-PACT)

[9] Measuring the IV Curve of Semiconductors with an Arduino. [Online].

Available: https://www.instructables.com/id/Measuring-the-IV-Curve-of-
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