Communication Through Optocoupler

(Technical document)

By:
Nidhi Saini
(Embedded Engineer)

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Objective- This document refer the optical communication between any two device. In our
project we have made it for the communication between our IOT device and the single phase
relay meter. When we started this project, we found problem in optical communication
between two devices(meter and IOT device in our case) and any how we achieved the proper
optical communication between two of them. So this document just a reference for optical
communication and not facing the same problem that we had.

Introduction- In optocoupler communication we are using the following components:

1. IR led
2. Photo Transistor(Photo diode)
3. Resistors

IR led is use as a signal transmitter and photo transistor as signal receiver for the
communication and by using the resistor flow of current in the circuit will be limited. In this
communication current should not exceed the 10 mA limit. So the value of resistor will be
decided according to the current. More current in the circuit can harm the led and led wont
work.

Working of the components- In optical communication components that will be used

mentioned above. Now discuss on the working of these components. We should know about
the working of the components.

1. IR Led- An IR LED is a type of diode or simple semiconductor. Electric current is allowed

to flow in only one direction in diodes. As the current flows, electrons fall from one part of
the diode into holes on another part. In order to fall into these holes, the electrons must shed
energy in the form of photons, which produce light.

Fig 1. IR led

2 Photo Transistor-A photo transistor is similarly to an ordinary bipolar junction transistor

except that no base terminal is provided. Instead of base current the input to the transistor is
provided in the form of light.
Principle
Consider an ordinary transistor with its base terminal open circuited. The collector base
leakage current ICBO will acts as base current.
Since
IC = IB + (1 + B) ICBO
And IB = o since base is open circuited
IC = (1 + ) ICBO
In photo transistor ICBO is increased when the collector base junction is illuminated.
When ICBO is increased the collector current is also increased therefore for a given amount
of illumination on a very small area of the photo transistor provides much largest output
current. Therefore the photo transistor is a light detector which combines a photo diode and a
transistor amplifier

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Construction and working:
The construction of a photo transistor is just like a conventional NPN transistor with a little
hole made on the surface mean to collector base junction. A small lens is fixed on this hole
for allowing a focused light beam to concentrate on the collector base junction. In the modern
methods of fabrication highly light effective materials are used instead of making a hole and
fixing of lens on it.

Fig2. Photo transistor

From the above fig. it is clear that the emitter base junction JE is forward based, whereas the
collector base junction JC is reverse based. When the transistor is kept in darkness there will
be very few minority change carriers (thermally generated) which will cause the flow of
reverse saturation collector current. This current for obvious reasons will be negligible small.
On light being found at the collector base junction additional photo generated minority
charge carriers will be available which will add to the reverse saturation current. Thus as soon
as the light source is applied the transistor starts conducting and amplified current starts
flowing though the reverse biased junction.

Optical communication- In our project we need to do communication between meter and

our device and in that we used inverted circuit because metes optical com was also using the
inverted circuit. Communication can be done on the basis of the same combination between
two devices.

There is a four possible combination for the communication. We can use four of them
individually for optical communication.

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 Fig 3. Inverted circuit of optocoupler

Fig 3 is the inverted circuit for optical communication. In this circuit we are using receiving
and transmitting both the side for two way communication between two devices(meter and
IOT device in our case). Right side is the original circuit that we have made for our
project.We have used IR led(white led), photo- transistor(golden led).

Fig 4. Picture of the Optical communication between meter and UART of the the device

In Fig 4., picture of the contentiously communication between the meter and the UART of
the device. On screen of the monitor it is visible how both the devices are transmitting and
receiving the data of meter.

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 Fig 5. Non-Inverted circuit of optocoupler

In fig 4, shows the non-inverted circuit for the optical communication between two device
and for two way communication.

t
Fig 5. Non-inverted transmitting and Inverted receiving signals

In Fig 5. shows the transmitting signals are non-inverted and receiving signals are inverted.

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 Fig 6. Inverted transmitting and Non-inverted receiving signal

In Fig 6. shows the transmitting signals are inverted and receiving signals are non-inverted.