Sensors

Prepared By: Vinay D. Salaskar

Contents
1 Overview 2 Classification of types 3 Thermal energy 4 Electromagnetic sensors 5 Mechanical sensors 6 Chemical sensors 7 Optical and radiation sensors 7.1 Ionizing radiation 7.2 Non ionizing radiation 8 Acoustic sensors 8.1 Acoustic 8.2 Other types of sensor 8.2.1 Non Initialized systems 8.2.2 Initialized systems 9 Biological sensors 10 Classification of measurement errors 11 Interfacing sensor with microcontroller. 12 Smart sensor system. 12.1 Goals and objectives 12.2 Technical description 12.3 Research area.

A sensor is a physical device or biological organ that detects, or senses, a signal or physical condition and chemical compounds

Overview
Most sensors are electrical or electronic, although other types exist. A sensor is a type of transducer. Sensors are either direct indicating (e.g. a mercury thermometer or electrical meter) or are paired with an indicator (perhaps indirectly through an analog to digital converter, a computer and a display) so that the value sensed becomes human readable. In addition to other applications, sensors are heavily used in medicine, industry and robotics. Technical progress allows more and more sensors to be manufactured with MEMS technology. In most cases this offers the potential to reach a much higher sensitivity. See also MEMS sensor generations.

2. Classification of types
Since a significant change involves an exchange of energy, sensors can be classified according to the type of energy transfer that they detect.

3. Thermal energy
Temperature sensors: thermometers, thermocouples, temperature sensitive resistors (thermistors), bi-metal thermometers and thermostats Heat sensors: bolometer, calorimeter

4. Electromagnetic sensors
electrical current sensors: galvanometer, ammeter electrical voltage sensors: leaf electroscope, voltmeter electrical power sensors: watt-hour meters magnetism sensors: magnetic compass, fluxgate compass, magnetometer, Hall effect device

5. Mechanical sensors
pressure sensors: altimeter, barometer, barograph, pressure gauge, air speed indicator, rate of climb indicator, variometer gas and liquid flow sensors: flow sensor, anemometer, flow meter, gas meter, water meter, mass flow sensor mechanical sensors: acceleration sensor, position sensor, selsyn, switch, strain gauge

6. Chemical sensors
Chemical sensors detect the presence of specific chemicals or classes of chemicals. Examples include oxygen sensors, also known as lambda sensors, ion-selective electrodes, pH glass electrodes, and redox electrodes.

7. Optical and radiation sensors

electromagnetic time-of-flight. Generate an electromagnetic impulse, broadcast it, then measure the time a reflected pulse takes to return. Commonly known as RADAR (Radio Detection And Ranging) are now accompanied by the analogous LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging. See following line), all being electromagnetic waves. Acoustic sensors are a special case in that a pressure transducer is used to generate a compression wave in a fluid medium (air or water) light time-of-flight. Used in modern surveying equipment, a short pulse of light is emitted and returned by a retroreflector. The return time of the pulse is proportional to the distance and is related to atmospheric density in a predictable way.

7.1 Ionising radiation

radiation sensors: Geiger counter, dosimeter, Scintillation_counter subatomic particle sensors: scintillometer, cloud chamber, bubble chamber

7.2 Non ionising radiation

light sensors, or photodetectors, including semiconductor devices such as photocells, photodiodes, phototransistors, CCDs, and Image sensors; vacuum tube devices like photo-electric tubes, photomultiplier tubes; and mechanical instruments such as the Nichols radiometer. proximity sensor- A type of distance sensor but less sophisticated. Only detects a specific proximity. May be optical - combination of a photocell and LED or laser. Applications in cell phones, paper detector in photocopiers, auto power

standby/shutdown mode in notebooks and other devices. May employ a magnet and a Hall effect device. scanning laser- A narrow beam of laser light is scanned over the scene by a mirror. A photocell sensor located at an offset responds when the beam is reflected from an object to the sensor, whence the distance is calculated by triangulation. focus. A large aperture lens may be focused by a servo system. The distance to an in-focus scene element may be determined by the lens setting. binocular. Two images gathered on a known baseline are brought into coincidence by a system of mirrors and prisms. The adjustment is used to determine distance. Used in some cameras (called range-finder cameras) and on a larger scale in early battleship range-finder interferometry. Interference fringes between transmitted and reflected lightwaves produced by a coherent source such as a laser are counted and the distance is calculated. Capable of extremely high precision.

8. Acoustic sensors
8.1 Acoustic
sound sensors: microphones, hydrophones, seismometers. acoustic: uses ultrasound time-of-flight echo return. Used in mid 20th century polaroid cameras and applied also to robotics. Even older systems like Fathometers (and fish finders) and other 'Tactical Active' Sonar (Sound Navigation And Ranging) systems in naval applications which mostly use audible sound frequencies.

8.2 Other types of sensor

motion sensors: radar gun, speedometer, tachometer, odometer, turn coordinator orientation sensors: gyroscope, artificial horizon, ring laser gyroscope distance sensor (noncontacting) Several technologies can be applied to sense distance: magnetostriction

8.2.1

Non Initialized systems

Gray code strip or wheel- a number of photodetectors can sense a pattern, creating a binary number. The gray code is a mutated pattern that ensures that only one bit of information changes with each measured step, thus avoiding ambiguities.

8.2.2

Initialized systems

These require starting from a known distance and accumulate incremental changes in measurements.

 Quadrature wheel- An disk-shaped optical mask is driven by a gear train. Two photocells detecting light passing through the mask can determine a partial revolution of the mask and the direction of that rotation. whisker sensor- A type of touch sensor and proximity sensor.

9. Biological sensors
All living organisms contain biological sensors with functions similar to those of the mechanical devices described. Most of these are specialized cells that are sensitive to: light, motion, temperature, magnetic fields, gravity, humidity, vibration, pressure, electrical fields, sound, and other physical aspects of the external environment; physical aspects of the internal environment, such as stretch, motion of the organism, and position of appendages (proprioception); an enormous array of environmental molecules, including toxins, nutrients, and pheromones; many aspects of the internal metabolic milieu, such as glucose level, oxygen level, or osmolality; an equally varied range of internal signal molecules, such as hormones, neurotransmitters, and cytokines; and even the differences between proteins of the organism itself and of the environment or alien creatures. Artificial sensors that mimic biological sensors by using a biological sensitive component, are called biosensors. The human senses are examples of specialized neuronal sensors.

10. Classification of measurement errors

A good sensor applies to the following rules: the sensor should be sensitive to the measured property the sensor should be insensitive to any other property the sensor should not influence the measured property In the ideal situation, the output signal of a sensor is exactly proportional to the value of the measured property. The gain is then defined as the ratio between output signal and measured property. For example, if a sensor measures temperature and has a voltage output, the gain is a constant with the unit [V/K]. If the sensor is not ideal, several types of deviations can be observed: The gain may in practice differ from the value specified. This is called a gain error. Since the range of the output signal is always limited, the output signal will eventually clip when the measured property exceeds the limits. The full scale

range defines the outmost values of the measured property where the sensor errors are within the specified range. If the output signal is not zero when the measured property is zero, the sensor has an offset or bias. This is defined as the output of the sensor at zero input. If the gain is not constant, this is called nonlinearity. Usually this is defined by the amount the output differs from ideal behaviour over the full range of the sensor, often noted as a percentage of the full range. If the deviation is caused by a rapid change of the measured property over time, there is a dynamic error. Often, this behaviour is described with a bode plot showing gain error and phase shift as function of the frequency of a periodic input signal. If the output signal slowly changes independent of the measured property, this is defined as drift. Long term drift usually indicates a slow degradation of sensor properties over a long period of time. Noise is a random deviation of the signal that varies in time. Hysteresis is an error caused by the fact that the sensor not instantly follows the change of the property being measured, and therefore involves the history of the measured property. If the sensor has a digital output, the signal is discrete and is essentially an approximation of the measured property. The approximation error is also called digitization error. If the signal is monitored digitally, limitation of the sampling frequency also causes a dynamic error. The sensor may to some extent be sensitive for other properties than the property being measured. For example, most sensors are influenced by the temperature of their environment.

All these deviations can be classified as systematic errors or random errors. Systematic errors can sometimes be compensated for by means of some kind of calibration strategy. Noise is a random error that can be reduced by signal processing, such as filtering, usually at the expense of the dynamic behaviour of the sensor.

11. Interfacing sensor with microcontroller

Interfacing any sensor with microcontroller requires a signal conditioning circuit as a mediator. Signal conditioning circuit perform all or one of the following operations: Amplification of signal from sensor if required. Impedance matching: Impedance of the circuit followed by the sensor should be matched with impedance of sensor for reliable and accurate operation. Signal filtering to eliminate noise. Analog to digital conversion as microcontroller can read the signals only in digital format.

Sensor

Analog signal

Data transfer through: Parallel port Serial peripheral interface(SPI). Inter integrated communication (I2C) Signal conditioning circuit

Microcontroller

Amplifiers Filters Buffers Analog to digital converters

Data manipulations Display Data storage Data transfer to remote device

12. Smart sensor system

12.1 Goal and Objective:
The development of silicon micro machined sensors enables physical transducers to be integrated with control and signal processing electronics in a single, compact package. This type of "smart" sensor will revolutionize the design of sensor systems. It will become easier, cheaper, and faster to design a sensor system, and the resulting systems will be more reliable, more scaleable, and provide higher performance than traditional systems. These benefits are gained by embedding computing resources on the sensor itself. The processing of data is performed within each individual sensor, rather than at a central system controller as in most traditional systems. While a sensor in the traditional sense outputs raw data, a smart sensor outputs only useful information. Furthermore, smart sensors may be dynamically programmed as user requirements change. This will decrease the need for expensive, application-specific sensors, as cheap, programmable, generalpurpose sensors will be adequate for most applications. The goal of this project is to prototype a smart sensor system and demonstrate the inherent advantages of this architecture and design methodology over traditional design techniques. To fulfill this objective, a smart sensor must be carefully architected and prototyped, and software tools to facilitate sensor system design, control, and maintenance must be written.

12.2 Technical Description

A distributed smart sensor system consists of a network backbone, on which reside many nodes. Nodes may be loosely classified as either sensor nodes or controller nodes. Sensor nodes are those which tend to send data to the network, and controller nodes are those which tend to gather data from the network. There may be more than one controller node

on a network. The network does not have to be physical; for example, one could establish a virtual network via the Internet.

Smart sensor system.

Prototype smart sensor node. A prototypical smart sensor node consists of three elements: a physical transducer, a network interface, and a processor/memory core. The transducer senses the physical quantity being measured and converts it into an electrical signal. Then the signal is fed to an A/D converter, and is now ready for use by the processor. The processor will perform some signal processing on the data, and depending on how it is programmed, may send the

resulting information out to the network. Network transactions are handled by the network interface block

12.3 Research Areas

The realization of a practical smart sensor system requires the synthesis of several technologies. One must bring together knowledge in the fields of sensors, data processing, distributed systems, and networks. While extensive research has been conducted in all of these areas, a smart sensor system imposes some new design parameters which must be met. A brief summary of research tasks follows: While most computer data resides within the virtual realm, sensor readings are attached to some quantity in the physical world. This means that each piece of sensor data also has some time and place associated with it. In terms of networks this means that latency is extremely important, as sensor systems are in some sense clocked by real-time events. To facilitate the timely delivery of packets, networks must support broadcast messages and time synchronization. The nodes themselves must be able to provide a clock and geographical location. Plug and play functionality requires a standard interface that communicates a node's identity and capabilities. The upcoming IEEE 1451 standard provides a basic communications link for sensor nodes, but provides no methods specific to programming a node's data processing resources. An interface must be defined that standardizes the dynamic programming of sensor nodes. Efficient data conversion within the smart sensor node is a fundamental key to its success. While the bandwidth required to transmit results is perhaps fixed, the bandwidth required to program the nodes is not. One may attempt to devise a small, efficient instruction set with which to program nodes for a wide variety of functions. The advantages of a smart sensor system can only be fully realized by the development of software tools to facilitate their design. This means a set of tools to help design, manage, and monitor the sensor network and to program the sensor nodes. For example, one could devise a compiler which transforms a sensing/control algorithm into appropriate code for the individual nodes. Existing CAD tools and compilers can be adapted to fulfill smart sensor needs.