See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263658301

Design and Implemenation of a pressure sensor

on Proteus: Four Sensing intelligent nodes
based system with central...

Chapter December 2013

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4286.3121

CITATIONS READS

0 3,652

5 authors, including:

Samreen Amir Ali Akbar Siddiqui

Dawood University of Engineering and Techn Sir Syed University of Engineering and Techn
27 PUBLICATIONS 30 CITATIONS 5 PUBLICATIONS 4 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Bhawani Shankar Chowdhry I.A. Grout

Mehran University of Engineering and Techn University of Limerick
147 PUBLICATIONS 181 CITATIONS 60 PUBLICATIONS 231 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Energy Efficient Sensor Design View project

Optical WBAN View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Samreen Amir on 08 August 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Design and Implementation of a Pressure Sensor on
Proteus: Four Sensing Intelligent Nodes Based System
with a Central Monitoring Unit

1 1
Samreen Amir ,*, Ali Akbar Siddiqui1, Nimrah Ahmed , Bhawani Shankar
Chowdhry2 and Ian Grout3
1
Sir Syed University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi, 2Mehran University of
Engineering & Technology Jamshoro, 3University of Limerick

samreen.amir4@gmail.com,ali124k@hotmail.com,nimra.ahmed99@gmail.com
,c.bhawani@ieee.org,Ian.Grout@ul.ie

Abstract. This paper provides an overview of designing a Pressure sensor with

its implementation on Proteus. We have worked on the concept of Autonomous
Nodes with Control Unit (CU) and Master Unit (MU). When the pressure of
gas increases in the pipe, the sensor senses it and the control unit will receive
transmission from the active node, either to open or close the valve and actively
communicates the result to master unit , whenever the status of signal changes.
All the autonomous nodes are connected to MU. This system is designed to
cope up with the excessive pressure of gas as to reduce the risk of accident.

Keywords: PIC16F627A, Spring Based Inductive Pressure Sensor, Multisim,

and Proteus.

1 Introduction
Pressure sensor is the devices that measures pressure, usually of liquids or gases and
is stated as force per unit area. It can be Absolute, Vacuum Pressure Static, Gage, and
Dynamic Pressure. Pressure can be measured by several derived methods like, Hy-
drostatic pressure, elastic deformation, behavior of gases, dynamic pressure. Pressure
compresses with increase in external pressure and expands as the pressure drops. It
can be categorized in terms of their pressure range, design, cost, performance, opera-
tive temperature range and the kind of pressure they determine.
Piezoelectric sensors cannot sense static pressures and are used to measure fast vary-
ing pressures resulting from explosions, blasts or other cause of vibration, and are
sensitive to temperature change. It can be used from about 3 psi to about 14,000
Pounds per Square Inch (psi). Absolute pressure sensor measures the pressure relative
to perfect vacuum and can achieve accuracy at high temperatures. Differential pres-
sure sensor measures the difference between two pressures, and measures flow rate or
fluid levels .The potentiometric pressure sensor offers a method for obtaining an elec-
tronic output from a mechanical pressure gauge. Its pressure range is 5 and 10,000
psi.
They are used in many different applications like monitoring, calibration, Level and
depth sensing, weather instrumentation, aircraft, industrial process control, etc. Sensor
features depends on the construction, material and dimension of structure [1]. There
are several pressure sensors, their selection can be made according to our demand,
but few factors should be kept in mind such as indoor and outdoor usage, vibration,
electrical and mechanical interference, shock , toughness , Power consumption , ac-
curacy, safety, temperature range, and hazardous areas like gas and oil applications.
Electrical interface allows the user to attach the output of sensor to the system by
means of Cables or connectors .It can be chosen upon the environmental situation
depending on the output signal. Mechanical interface describe the process link [2].
For designing Pressure sensor tools are rare, some companies are trying to develop
Computer Aided Design tools for MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical System), still
they are not meeting their goal [3]. Some has designed sensor to monitor oil pressure
in particular range of temperature by using FEA (Finite Element analysis) software
ANSYS (Analysis System) tool [4]. The other paper focuses on the design and simu-
lation of micro fluid sensor which can be attached to any pipe and they have been
designed and simulated on MEMS tool Comsol multiphysics [5]. Micro pressure sen-
sors are used to monitor and measure pressure in various environments by using data
mining software tool machine language- WEKA (Waikato Environment for Know-
ledge Analysis) [6].
In this paper we have designed a sensor on Proteus which was founded in 1988. It
enables our pressure sensor to tackle the pressure of Gas pipeline. Gas is transported
by means of gas pipelines in a compressed state; therefore in the incident of gas lea-
kage this can be hazardous as there is stored energy [7]. The purpose of the gas pipe-
line application is to check critical notification about the gas and are not only limited
to transmission, gathering and distribution systems. Gas can be stored for the time
being in the pipeline, through line packing which can provide gas at the time of re-
quirement. Under some situation when the pressure and temperature increases to
some extent it is possible to cause spur-of-the-moment combustion of flammable gas
[8]. Monitoring gas pipelines is a significant job for safety and economical operation,
loss avoidance and environmental safeguard [9].
Whenever pressure of gas increases in our pipeline, expands and contracts with the
decrease of the pressure this expansion and contraction is monitored and controlled by
our proposed system. Sensor node gathers information and can also communicate
with each other if necessary. RF (Radio Frequency) communication is used for trans-
mission and reception of information between sensor nodes and main CPU. In most
wireless systems, a designer has two limitations: it must function over a definite dis-
tance and within a time frame transfers some amount of information. Two parameters
must be considered when determining range i.e. transmitting power and receiver sen-
sitivity. Receiver sensitivity refers to the minimum level signal the radio can demodu-
late.
For better receiver sensitivity, lower data rates are required so it will give more range.
Thus 19200 baud module has less sensitivity than 9600 baud rate and the data trans-
ferred will miss out some of the data [10]. Higher data rates require more transmission
power in minimum time. Here we are working with 9600 baud rate. In our proposed
system we have designed a spring based inductive pressure sensor. This sensor will be
placed inside the pipeline for measuring the pressure, when the force is applied on the
spring, it contracts and it changes its area, which causes its Induction to change as
well.

2 System Overview

2.1 System description

In our proposed system, we have introduced PIC16F627A for operating the relays
connected to valve as well as to transmit the condition of the valve that either they are
ON or OFF. PIC16F627A is a flash based 8-bit microcontroller capable of executing
a single instruction in approximately 200 nanoseconds. It features an internal 4MHz
oscillator, and 128 bytes of EEPROM data memory, it also has a USART (Universal
Synchronous Asynchronous Receive Transmitter) that is used to communicate with
other devices serially either by wired or wireless communication [11]. The purpose of
PIC16F627A microcontroller is to monitor the pressure in the Gas line and adjust the
valve according to the condition required, the calibration is done in accordance that if
the pressure in the line rises up to 20 psi (Pounds per square inch) our PIC16F627A
microcontroller will turn OFF the valve and then update this knowledge to the main
CPU.
This main CPU will display the status of the values, which are wirelessly interfaced
with the nodes via RF Transceivers. In our proposed system we have designed four
identical nodes, and each node is wirelessly apart from each other are interfaced with
the main CPU. We have designed a spring based inductive intelligent pressure sensor
capable of measuring the pressure in psi; eq (1) demonstrates the formula for the con-
version in psi. When force is applied on the pressure sensor it contracts.

(1)
When this contraction occurs, the area of that spring changes, and change in the area
of the spring will directly affect the inductance of the Inductor. When a force in ap-
plied on the spring the area of that spring will change accordingly.
When this contraction occurs, the area of that spring changes, and change in the area
of the spring will directly affect the inductance of the Inductor. When a force in ap-
plied on the spring the area of that spring will change accordingly.

(2)

Where, L is Inductance, N is the number of turn of winding, is the relative permit-

tivity, A is the Area, is the length.

(3)
 Where, is the Impedance, is the Reactance.

Often it is required to measure the pressure in unsteady environmental conditions, the

measurement of the time varying pressure sensor it of utmost importance and in re-
sponse to such kind of cases, phenomena like the time or frequency response of pres-
sure measuring systems consists of Valves etc. are required and it is important not to
neglect various other parameters. Mathematical model of the Inductive sensor resem-
bles to that of a simple RL circuit, with the Inductive change that occurs when the
area contracts,

(4)

The equation (4) is the first order Time Domain representation, and by applying Lap-
lace Transform we can convert it into frequency domain which is represented by equ-
ation (5).
(5)

Fig. 1. Step Response of uncompensated sensor at 20 psi

In our system area and length are the two factors affecting our Inductive Transducer.
Fig.1 shows the step response of an uncompensated result of the inductive sensors
transfer function. Due to this change in the induction there will be a certain change in
the Inductor Voltage (VL); this is basically the Voltage that has to be fed to the
PIC16F627A microcontroller for the purpose of controlling the valve, and to update
the status of the value to the main CPU via RF Transceiver. Table.1. Shows the
changes occurs due to the certain change in Inductance (L) when affected by the
force.
 Table 1. Showing the changes occurring in different parameters.

Area Change in Pressure

Inductance in
(L) (psi)
2 10uH 3.77mV 20
2 mm
2 9uH 3.39mV 19
4 mm
2 8uH 3.02mV 18
6 mm
2 7uH 2.64mV 17
8 mm
2 6uH 2.26mV 16
10 mm
2 5uH 1.88mV 15
12 mm
2 4uH 1.51mV 14
14 mm
2 3uH 1.13mV 13
16 mm
2 2uH 0.753mV 12
18 mm
2 1uH 0.377mV 11
20 mm

Table.1 represents the changes occurring up till the value where the valve will turn
off. It also clearly shows the approximate change in the value of VL. This means the
change in 1uH Inductance will change the VL by 0.38mV approximately.

Fig. 2. Block Diagram of the Whole Hardware System.

Fig.2 demonstrates a complete block diagram of our proposed system, which shows
all four nodes with transceivers, interfaced wirelessly with main CPU. Each valve is
also interfaced with our PIC16F627A microcontroller which is controlled by the Re-
lay separately.

2.2 Software Description

In our proposed system, we have used MicroC pro for programming or PIC16F627A.
Micro C pro consists of all the libraries and tools to design our desired software. The
simulated design of our complete hardware is built on Proteus. The ISIS Schematic
Capture of Proteus is used for the designing purpose. Multisim is used to design an
inductive Transducer. Matlab is also used to simulate the result of the designed sensor
to observe the parameters more closely.
Fig.3. is the flow chart of complete software Model in stepwise manner. After system
initialization each PIC16F627A microcontroller of separate nodes continuously moni-
tor the Sensors interfaced to each of them, and will only turn the value OFF only if
the Pressure reaches to 20 PSI, and simultaneously will also update the main CPU via
RF Transceiver about the status of the Valve that either it is in On condition or OFF.

Fig. 3. Block Diagram of the Software System

3 Results
The results of our proposed system are tested on the Proteus environment clearly
showing the working system model. Fig.4 demonstrates the status of the valves that
were updated by the PIC16F627A microcontroller wirelessly, whether the valves are
in On or OFF condition.

Fig. 4. Complete Simulated System Model on Proteus

Fig. 5. Complete System with Valve Status.

Fig.5. Result represents an individual Node with serial communication, which is use
for interfacing the RF Transceiver that communicates the main CPU with each of our
Nodes.

Fig. 6. Single Node of a complete System

Fig.6. represents an individual Node with serial communication, which is use for in-
terfacing the RF Transceiver that communicates the main CPU with each of our
Nodes. The Inductive Transducer is tested using variable Inductor, and implemented
on the Multisim environment, thus the following results were accumulated.

Fig. 7. Represent the output at 10uH

Fig.7 result demonstrates an output at 10uH, at this point the Area of the spring is of 2
mm2. This means that the spring is contract at the point representing the reading has
reached to its maximum value that is 20 PSI; we can clearly see the voltage output is
3.77mV as shown in Table (1). This is the voltage that is fed to our PIC16F627A
microcontroller for processing after converting it in Digital format using ADC.
 Fig. 8. Represent the output at 9uH.

Fig.8 result demonstrates an output at 9uH, at this point the Area of the spring is of
4mm2. This represent that the spring has contracted and the Pressure has reached to
the 18 PSI. Which represented the voltage output is 3.39mV as demonstrated in the
Table (1).

Fig. 9. Represent the output at 1uH.

Fig.9 result demonstrates an output at 1uH, at this point the Area of the spring is of
20mm2 .This represents thats the spring has not contracted enough and the pressure
is at low level that is 11 psi, and there is no danger to a Gas Line. Which represented
the voltage output is 0.377mV as demonstrated in the Table (1). These results are
taken in accordance to the system operation.
Fig. 10. Represent the graphical output of parameters such as psi with respect to Area, and L
with respect to VL.

Fig. 11. Represent the graphical output of the parameters, that shows the how changes occurs in
different parameters involve in the sensor system such as psi with respect to area, and Voltage
with respect to inductance.

4 Conclusion
In our proposed system, we have introduced an idea of cheaper way to measure pres-
sure in environment such as Pipelines. The entire system is simulated, and compiled
in Proteus environment. The design of the pressure sensor using variable inductor is
implemented in Multisim environment. Apart from our work, many different software
tools are used to construct these sensors, which are either costly or unavailable for the
commercially or for a small industry. Our proposed system performed according to
our desired parameter, and can easily be implemented in Industry for the monitoring
purpose of gas, and fluids etc.
Reference
1. Ciprian Ionescu, Paul Svasta, Cristina Marghescu, Marina Santo Zarnik, Darko Belavi
:Study on Optimization of Capacitive Pressure Sensor Using Coupled Mechanical-electric
Analysis. The 32nd International Spring Seminar on Electronics Technology ISSE2009,
Proceedings CD-ROM, Brno, Cehia, 13-17 mai 2009, ISBN: 978-1-4244-4260-7.(2009)
2. Design Essentials:How to select a pressure sensor for a specific application. Business
Development American Sensor Technology,
http://www.astsensors.com/articles/Design%20Essentials_design%20fax.pdf (Nov, 2013)
3. Tai Kang :Shing,Robust Design of Silicon Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor. Technical Pro-
ceedings of the 1998 International Conference on Modeling and Simulation of Microsys-
tems, page 597-601 (1998)

4. Feng Ye, ZHong Ming Wang: Design of pressure sensor in Common rail system By
ANSYS tool. In Computer-Aided Design, Manufacturing, Modeling and Simulation Feng
Ye et al., 2011, Applied Mechanics and Materials, 88-89, 545. ( 2011)
5. Prasad N Acharaya, Surjata Naduvinamsan :Design and simulation of MEMS based Micro
pressure sensor. Excepted for the proceedings of the 2012 COMSOL Conference in Ban-
galore.(2012)
6. K. Y. Madhavi, Sumithradevi.K.A, M Krishna , Andhe Dharani Member, IAENG
:Diaphragm Design for MEMS PressureSensor using a Data Mining Tool. Proceeding of
the World Congress on Engineering, Vol II WCE 2011, Londan, UK. (2011)
7. Y.Chalapathi Rao, Dr.Ch.Santhi Rani,P.Lavanya :Monitoring and Protection of Oil and
Gas Condition in Industrial Using Wireless Sensor Networks. International Journal of
Electronics Communication and Computer Technology (IJECCT) Volume 2 Issue
5.(2012)
8. Wei Yong, Ming Jiang, Yan Tang : Study on Liquid Pipeline Water Hammer and Protec-
tive Device with Gas Concentration. Qi Wei Yong et al., Advanced Materials Research,
616-618. (2012)
9. Kenya Fukushima,Reiko Maeshima, Akira Kinoshita, Hitoshi Shiraishi, Ichiro Koshijima
:GasPipeline Leak Detection System Using the Online Simulation Method .Computers &
Chemical Engineering, Volume 24, Issues 27, Pages 453456. (2000)
10. Alam, S. S : Electronics Assembly And Printed Circuit Board Layout (Doctoral disserta-
tion), California State University.(2013)
11. Electrosome, www.electrosome.com/category/tutorials/pic-microcontroller/mikroc/ (Nov,
2013)
View publication stats