CHAPTER 2

WORKING OF DISSOLVED OXYGEN SENSOR

2.1 DESCRIPTION
The dissolved oxygen sensor consists of two high power LEDs of suitable wavelength. The
colors of the LEDs are blue and red. The blue light is incident on the lumiphore membrane which
only allows the oxygen dissolved in the sample water to pass through. The blue light after
interaction with the oxygen molecules and the process known as fluorescence emits red light.
The reference red LED is also in the construction. Both the reflected as well as the reference
light is allowed to fall on the photodiode. The photodiode is connected to a suitable circuitry to
evaluate the phase difference between the two lights. The phase difference evaluated is
proportional to the dissolved oxygen content in the sample water. Thus the DO content in the
water can be evaluated.

2.2 CONSTRUCTION AND STANDARDS SPECIFICATION

Components and material used in DO sensor consist of:

1) Photodiode: The photodiode is used to sense the light. The output of the photodiode that
is current flows in the reverse direction and its amount depends upon the intensity of light
emitted on the surface of photodiode. The quantum efficiency of the silicon based
photodiode is 90% which is higher than any other material.

• Silicon photodiode
• Photodiode: centronic 5-5T
• Range 430nm-900nm
• Soldering temperature 2000C for 5 seconds max
• Rise time 9 ns
• Low dark leakage current
 2) NI USB 6003: This NI device is the low cost DAQ multifunction USB.

• 16 bit resolution
• Both differential and single-ended analog inputs
• Sampling rate of 100kS/sec
• Total of 13 digital lines

3) Operational amplifier OPA445AP: It is the high voltage FET-input operational amplifier.

The use of FET input amplifier is because of its capacity to allow the usage of high
impedance feedback circuitry.

• Output current 15mA

• Using as transimpedance amplifier
• Power supply range ±10V to ±45V
• Low input bias current 10pA

4) NI LabView: It is the engineering software for the requirement of testing, measurement

and control.
• DAQ Assistant
• MAX driver

LabView Programming
1) The first challenge was to create a trans-impedance amplifier for the conversion the
photodiode current output to the voltage form for further efficient usage of the signal.
 The amplifier was first designed on the multisim software for the online simulation the
generated signal. The parameters were chosen on the basis of the calculations given
below.
Calculations:
The calculations for the transimpedance operational amplifier for feedback resistance and
capacitance are as follows:
𝑉𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑥−𝑉𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛
R= 𝐼𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑥−𝐼𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛
1
C ≤ 2∗𝜋∗𝑅∗𝐹
Where F = 1kHz,
Vomax = 5V and Vomin= 0V
Iimax = 5µA and Iimin = 0A
5−0
Therefore R=
5𝜇−0
R = 1MΩ
1
And C = 2∗𝜋∗1𝑀∗1𝐾
C = 150pF

The output results are as follows:

2) The main challenge was to develop a LabView program to find the phase difference
between the two resultant LED lights of blue fluorescence and red color that declares the
presence of oxygen in water sample and also the value of phase shift is directly
proportional to the amount of oxygen content in water.
 The phase difference is calculated in LabView using the ‘Extract Single Tone
information’ in VI. The two generated waveforms or signals are connected to this VI
where it extract the information according to the chosen parameter which can be either
frequency measurement of the given signal data or the amplitude or the phase difference.
By calculating the phase difference in two different waveforms one of blue light
fluorescence and of red light this will be subtracted to get the phase shift which will result
in the amount of oxygen content.

The following are the steps involved to calculate the phase difference:
• Open the LabView. Go to the block diagram page and left click then go to
EXPRESS in the bottom of the open tab.
• In EXPRESS a new tab is shown where to go to the INPUT and then to
SIMULATE SIGNAL.
• The simulate signal properties are shown where to decide which signal to generate
and of what offset value, phase of the generated signal, the number of samples
moreover if to add any noise to the generated signal.
• After the generation of the signal a second signal is also simulated using the same
steps but with a different phase value.
• These simulated signals are then passed to the ‘extract single tone information’
from the ANALYZE -> WAVEFORM MEASUREMENT -> EXTRACT
SINGLE TONE INFORMATION.
• Using the wire tool the simulated signal output is connected to single tone input.
• From the different output points of the extract vi choose the phase difference and
wire it with the SUBTRACT from the NUMERIC -> SUBTRACT.
• Same with the other simulated signal. Finding the difference of phase in two
waveforms the result is shown on the numeric indicator.

3) The next challenge was the display of the original output of the photodiode which was in
the form of current depending upon the amount of light intensity fall on the acting surface
of the photodiode that was further converted into the voltage form using a trans-
impedance amplifier.
The output is directly taken from the pin 6(output) of the operational amplifier where it is
operated by a power supply of ±12 volt and wired directly to the NI USB for further
graphing of the output on the desktop screen. The output is connected to the analog pin of
the USB and number of samples is set to N numbers means continuous waveform.
The following are the steps involved in the analysis of the photodiode on desktop screen:
• Firstly the output from the op-amp is connected directly to the analog pin a1 of
the NI USB 6003.
• Open the LabView. Choose the blank VI to open the new page.
• Right click on the block window and click on the EXPRESS to choose the DAQ
Assistant.
• After the initializing of the DAQ Assistant, a new tab is open for setting of the
properties of the waveform and to choose N number of samples.
• Also, the type of analog signal should also be selected as chosen by DAQ itself.
• Now as the assistant is build up the output of the DAQ is coonected to the
waveform graph selected by right click on the output arrow of DAQ and next
click on create.
• The output signal in the of sinusoidal is generated on the left panel of the
LabView on the waveform graph.