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Virtual instrumentation and intelligent sensors

A.H. Taner, J.E. Brignell *
Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SOI 7 1BJ UK

Abstract
An intelligent sensor is a far more sophisticated and complex device than a traditional dumb sensor. A virtual instrument approach in the research and development stages of intelligent sensors greatly reduces the burden of dealing with the potential complexities of behaviour. An example of such an instrument is presented, and it is conjectured that this approach would also be beneficial not only in development but also

in the field and in production.

Keyworak Intelligent sensors; Virtual instrumentation

1. Introduction

2. Development

tool

The development and use of intelligent sensors can be full of pitfalls, mainly because the possibilities introduced by embedded processing are so large that the potential complexity of behaviour is too much for the human mind to encompass. An example is the development of the reconfigurable analogue ASIC front-end, designed to provide self-test and autocalibration facilities [ 11. This sub-system has 216 possible states, and some of them have to be forbidden because they are inappropriate, or even damaging. It is a fairly simple matter to filter out these states by software based on basic Boolean operations [ 1,2], but this still leaves a man/machine interaction problem. There are other aspects that can be difficylt to handle, such as the high number of input/output signals both digital and analogue, and the need to capture transient responses of primary sensors in order to implement frequency-response compensation [ 31. A solution to these problems was found in the application of a computer graphical interface in the presentation and control of these data [ 41. As this system developed it effectively became a virtual instrument [ 51 dedicated to the development of intelligent sensor systems [ 61. The experience of using such a facility has led the authors to explore the idea of giving the virtual instrument a wider rale, extending it to include not only development but also calibration and testing in production and in the field.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 1703 593 580. Fax: +44 1703 592 901. E-mail: jeb@ecs.soton.ac.uk

The virtual instrument was originally conceived as a development tool. The trial analogue ASIC had maximal pin-out for test purposes: a total of over 100 hundred pins [ 11. Various control, data and test signals which required to be manipulated and observed simultaneously made it virtually impossible to use conventional instrumentation methods. Therefore the practical way to deal with it was effectively to embed it in a PC by means of a specially designed circuit board and standard data acquisition (DAQ) boards. A generic illustration of a virtual instrument development tool based on DAQ boards is shown in Fig. 1. The only way it was possible for the development engineer to handle all the data was by condensing them in a graphical display. An essential part of the intelligent sensor design is the program of the embedded processor, and there are enormous gains in being able to develop this on the host PC while testing it online on the real chip. For example, the switch settings, once checked, can be automatically included. By use of a portable language, such as C, and a suitable cross compiler the completed and tested program can be downloaded into the ROM of the target intelligent sensor.

3. The virtual

instrument

The main features of the virtual instrument can be seen in the copy of the computer screen shown in Fig. 2, though the benefits of colour in lending clarity are not evident in this monochrome version. All the controls can be set with the aid of the computer mouse, including switch and gain setting. A

impulse response needs to be captured in order to implement frequency-response compensation. In addition, interfering variables, most notably temperature, need to be controlled, so that cross-sensitivity compensation can be accomplished. As each sensor moves along the production line, the virtual instrument will provide outputs that may stimulate the sensor, and deals with various input signals from the sensor system. The compensation coefficients and other necessary parameters are calculated and downloaded into sub-system EPROM. This concept of downloading is fundamental to the principle of intelligent sensors, and it is important to ensure that compensation processes are all developed in such a way that they can be defined by a set of coefficients [ 31. Examples include look-up tables for linearization and digital filters for frequency compensation, both of which can be created automatically within the virtual instrumentation system. The states through which the system must pass during the test and calibration cycle can also be formulated as a table, since each state is represented by a 16-bit word.

5. Field applications

Fig. 1. Hardware

set-up of the virtual instrument development

tool.

number of standard configurations can be selected by means of the setting mode switch, while manual setting of each individual switch is also permitted. On each switch change a message as to its legality is returned from the switch setting filter routine. Signal flow can be monitored by means of boxes that numerically indicate levels and by means of live graphs. There is provision for oscilloscope-type displays of the transient response of the primary sensor and the analogue output of the ASIC. Capture of the transient response can be initiated from the virtual instrument, which also controls the sampling conditions such as the trigger level, the delay between each sample and the number of samples. An accurate transient response is important in the realization of frequencyresponse dorrection filters. The analogue output can also be displayed both numerically and graphically.

4. Production applications One of the most important contributions made by intelligence within a sensor is in the area of production test and set. In traditional industry, post-production trimming and calibration are costly manpower-intensive activities, and minimizing the human element can reduce this cost considerably. Fig. 3 illustrates the use of a virtual instrument in this application. Often the most difficult part to implement is control of the measurand. In general this needs to be done in successive steps for calibration and linearization, but the step or

The considerable increase in information and its utility afforded by the virtual instrument in the research and development environment leads to the question of whether it could also make a contribution in the field. Obviously such usage would be more constrained as it would not be sensible to provide the massive pin-out that is required in the research context. Nevertheless, the ability to work from a graphical representation of the sub-system for both monitoring and control is very appealing. Extra software would have to be provided in the sensor to facilitate communication with the instrument. There are four possibilities for communication: 1. Specific data-acquisition hardware 2. Local parallel port 3. Local serial port 4. Over the network These are in order of decreasing access speed. The first three options would require the test and calibration system to be set up at the sensor site. Thus, the virtual instruments need to be mounted on a portable computer. When plugged in this would interrogate the sensor to obtain vectors representing the state of the system, which would be displayed on a system diagram. This is a familiar concept when applied to large systems, such as power distribution networks, but until now sensors have not been complicated enough to merit such provision. Operation over a network is an extremely attractive option, provided the bandwidth is available. Fig. 4 illustrates a virtual instrument implementation which administers a set of sensors and actuators in a process. The central computer would be able to call up the system diagram for each individual sensor and display its state upon interrogation. The state could be changed manually from the centre and any pathological con-

Fig. 2. Virtual instrument panel for the reconligurahle

analogue ASIC front-end.

Sensor Response
loefficients

Fig. 3. Production-line

trimming and calibration

of intelligent sensors.

References [l] A.H. Taner and J.E. Brignell, Aspects of intelligent sensor reconfiguration, Sensors and Actuators A, 4627 ( 1995) 525-529. [2] A.H. Taner and J.E. Brignell, Software drivers for the reconfigurable ASIC analogue front end, ASKS for Measurement Systems, IEE Digest No. 1994/050, pp. 411414. [3] J.E. Brignell and N.M. White, Intelligent Sensor Systems; Revised Edition, IOP, Bristol, 1996, ISBN O-7503-0389- 1. [4] A.H. Taner and J.E. Brignell, The role of the graphical user interface in the development of intelligent sensor systems, Man-Machine Interfaces for Instrumentation. IEE Digest No. 1995/l 75, pp. 3 I 1-3 16. [ 5 1 A.H. Taner and J.E. Brignell, A graphical user interface for intelligent sensor reconfiguration, in A. Augousti (ed.), Proc. Sensors and their Applications VII, IOP, Bristol, 1996, ISBN 0-7503-0331-X, pp. 365369. [6] A.H. Taner and N.M. White, Virtual instrumentation: a solution to the problem of design complexity in intelligent instruments, Measurement and Control, 29 (1996) 165-171.

Biographies Ali Haldun Taner was born in Turkey in 1968. He received a BSc. degree from the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Hacettepe University. He worked in the same department as a research assistant for one and a half years while attending M.Sc. courses. He did his Ph.D. at the Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK, where he is currently working as a research fellow. The title of his thesis was Self-test and autocalibration in intelligent sensors; design aids for reconfigurable ASICs. In 1994 he received a gold medal for the best paper presented at Eurosensors VIII, Toulouse, France. His research interests include self-test, diagnostics and auto-calibration in intelligent (smart) sensor systems, ASICs, virtual instrumentation, computer-aided test and control, and embedded systems. John Brignell began his career as an apprentice at STC. He took the degrees of B.Sc.(Eng.) and Ph.D. of London University. He joined the staff at Northampton and was successively research assistant, research fellow and lecturer. He worked in a number of areas including dielectric liquids and computer-aided measurement, co-authoring a book L.aboratory On-line Computing in 1975. He was for ten years reader in electronics at the City University, London, and has held the chair in industrial instrumentation at Southampton University since 1980. He has researched and written extensively in the area of sensors and their applications, and in 1994 coauthored the book Intelligent Sensor Systems. He has had an extensive private consultancy practice for many years and has advised some of the larger companies in the UK, as well as many small ones, on all aspects of industrial instrumentation. He has pioneered the use of a number of technologies in sensing, such as thick film, and has recently turned his attention to the considerable possibilities of micro-engineering. He is a fellow of IOP, InstMC, IEE and RSA. In 1994 he was awarded the Callendar Silver Medal by InstMC.

IS - Intcllipgct SQturn U=lIlklI&atACt&UOX8 Fig. 4. Field application of virtual instruments.

ditions arising from the self-test and autocalibration routines could be indicated pictorially with appropriate emphasis.

6. Discussion

and conclusions

There is no doubt of the value of virtual instrumentation in the development of intelligent sensors. The experience of trying to do the job without it is thoroughly convincing. There seems to be every reason to suppose that similar advantages would accrue if the same approach were adopted to the maintenance of sensors in the field and to the final stages of the production process. Owing to their unique features, such as microprocessing capability, reconfigurability and digital communication, intelligent sensors require novel instrumentation techniques for their utilisation. Microcomputer-based virtual instruments can satisfy these requirements from development stage to in field applications.