A Non-Invasive Thermal Drift Compensation Technique Applied to a Spin-Valve Magnetoresistive Current Sensor
A compensation method for the sensitivity drift of a magnetoresistive (MR) Wheatstone bridge current sensor is proposed. The technique was carried out by placing a ruthenium temperature sensor and the MR sensor to be compensated inside a generalized impedance converter circuit (GIC). No internal modification of the sensor bridge arms is required so that the circuit is capable of compensating practical industrial sensors. The method is based on the temperature modulation of the current supplied to the bridge, which improves previous solutions based on constant current compensation. Experimental results are shown using a microfabricated spin-valve MR current sensor. The temperature compensati…
An analog electronic interface to measure electrical conductivity in liquids
Abstract Measuring conductivity in aqueous solutions is a problem which is not easy to solve due to the differences in mass and mobility that exist between ions conduction and electrons. Additionally, it is necessary to keep in mind the interaction processes electrode-solution. As a consequence, the electrolytic conductivity cell has to be polarized with alternating voltage of adequate amplitude and frequency in order to extract the correct information. In this paper an electronic conditioning circuit is presented which converts electric conductivity into a value of continuous voltage. A hardware solution is proposed to do the conductivity temperature compensation. Experimental results obta…
Transconductance Converters Based on Current Mirrors Applied to pH Measurement Using ISFET Sensors
New transconductance circuits (V/I converters) are designed based on current mirrors and operational amplifiers. Their input/output characteristics and the influence of DC parameters are obtained. Experimental results were performed, comparing them with the simulated results. An electronic instrumentation circuit is designed based on one of the transconductance converters analyzed. The purpose of this circuit was to condition the response of an ion-sensitive field-effect transistor (ISFET) to measure pH. In the proposed application, the V/I converter presented provides the stability and accuracy of the ISFET operating point, making an easy characterization procedure and the design of multic…
Electronic Design for a Bleeding Detector to be Used in Intraoperative Radiotherapy Applications
An electronic design for a bleeding detector used with mobile linac during intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) is presented. It consists on a readout circuit based on a De Sauty Bridge and a wireless power supply using a supercapacitor. The goal is the measurement of the height of fluid present in the applicator in order to avoid a misadministration dose during the irradiation process. A minimum measurement height of 5 mm is required by clinic to be confident with the selected radiation dose. The measurement circuit uses a capacitive sensor which detects variations lower than 0.1 pF. The readout circuit converts dynamic capacitance variation from the bleeding detector into an analog voltage …
A new gas sensor electronic interface with generalized impedance converter
A new gas sensor conditioning circuit that allows a direct resistance-to-frequency conversion, as well as the procedure for the design, is presented. The generalized impedance converter (GIC) proposed is configured as a variable capacitor connected with the capacitor timing terminal of an astable multivibrator implemented by a PSoC (programmable system on chip) microcontroller device. The GIC effective input impedance, which is controlled by the gas sensor resistance, controls the astable output frequency. Good correlation of the experimental output frequency, which depends on the gas concentration, is achieved. The circuit is a simple gas sensor digital interface with frequency output.
Desarrollo de una instrumentación electrónica para la medida y caracterización de sensores electroquímicos basados en ISFETs/MEMFETs : aplicación a la determinación de aniones en agua
Novel Wood Resistance Measurement Method Reducing the Initial Transient Instabilities Arising in DC Methods Due to Polarization Effects
A novel method for measuring the electrical resistance in wood is presented. It is based on applying an Alternating Current (AC) to two electrodes rammed into the wood. The method reduces the transient time for value stabilization. In case of Direct Current (DC) resistance measurement methods, typically used in wood measurement, an initial transient exists, invalidating the measured value during an initial transient period. This measurement method uses an electronic circuit based on a relaxation oscillator where the wood automatically sets the oscillation frequency depending on its electrical resistance. Compared to other AC methods, this circuit greatly simplifies the measurement process, …