Sensor technologies

Capacitive and resistive sensors

Capacitive sensors consist of two parallel metal plates in which the dielectric between the plates is either air or some

other medium. C = 0rA/d,

Resistive sensors rely on the variation of the resistance of a material when the measured variable is applied to it

Sensor technologies
Magnetic sensors Inductive sensors Variable reluctance sensors Eddy current sensors

Sensor technologies
Hall-effect sensors

Sensor technologies
Piezoelectric transducers Strain gauges Piezoresistive transducers Optical sensor (air path)

Optical sensors (fibre-optic)

The basis of operation of fibre-optic sensors is the translation of the physical quantity measured into a change in one or more parameters of a light beam. The light parameters that can be modulated are one or more of the following: intensity phase polarization wavelength transmission time.

Optical sensors (fibre-optic)

Fibre-optic sensors usually incorporate either glass/plastic cables or all plastic cables. All glass types are rarely used because of their fragility. Plastic cables have particular advantages for sensor applications because they are cheap and have a relatively large diameter of 0.51.0mm, making connection to the transmitter and receiver easy.

Optical sensors (fibre-optic)

Two major classes of fibre-optic sensor: Intrinsic sensors, the fibre-optic cable itself is the sensor Extrinsic sensors, the fibre-optic cable is only used to guide light to/from a conventional sensor

Intrinsic sensors
Intrinsic sensors can modulate either the intensity, phase, polarization, wavelength or transit time of light. Light intensity is the simplest parameter to manipulate in intrinsic sensors because only a simple source and detector are required.

Intrinsic sensors

Intrinsic sensors
Modulation of the intensity of transmitted light takes place in various simple forms of proximity, displacement, pressure, pH and smoke sensors.

Intrinsic sensors
A slightly more complicated method of effecting light intensity modulation is the variable shutter sensor. This consists of : two fixed fibres two collimating lenses a variable shutter between them Working: Movement of the shutter changes the intensity of light transmitted between the fibres. Use: This is used to measure the displacement of various devices such as Bourdon tubes, diaphragms and bimetallic thermometers.

Extrinsic sensors
Extrinsic fibre-optic sensors use a fibre-optic cable, normally a multimode one, to transmit modulated light from a conventional sensor such as a resistance thermometer and a platinum resistance thermometer (PRT). Extrinsic fibre-optic sensors provides excellent protection against noise corruption.

Ultrasonic transducers
Transmission speed

Ultrasonic transducers
Direction of travel of ultrasound waves Air currents can alter the direction of travel of ultrasound waves. An air current moving with a velocity of 10 km/h has been shown experimentally to deflect an ultrasound wave by 8mm over a distance of 1m.

Ultrasonic transducers
Directionality of ultrasound waves

Ultrasonic transducers
Relationship between wavelength, frequency and directionality of ultrasound waves

Ultrasonic transducers
Attenuation of ultrasound waves

X0 : the magnitude of the energy at the point of emission F : the nominal frequency of the ultrasound :the attenuation constant

Ultrasonic transducers
Ultrasound as a range sensor Use of ultrasound in tracking 3D object motion

Ultrasonic transducers
Effect of noise in ultrasonic measurement systems Background ultrasound :
use of sound-absorbing material

Energy that is reflected off some object in the environment:

transmission-time counter

Ultrasonic transducers
Exploiting Doppler shift in ultrasound transmission