SENSOR TECHNOLOGY

In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or

subsystem whose purpose is to detect events or changes in its environment and
send the information to other electronics, frequently a computer processor. A
sensor is always used with other electronics.
Sensors are used in everyday objects such as touch-sensitive elevator buttons
(tactile sensor) and lamps which dim or brighten by touching the base, besides
innumerable applications of which most people are never aware. With advances in
micromachinery and easy-to-use microcontroller platforms, the uses of sensors
have expanded beyond the traditional fields of temperature, pressure or flow
measurement, for example into MARG sensors. Moreover, analog sensors such as
potentiometers and force-sensing resistors are still widely used. Applications
include manufacturing and machinery, airplanes and aerospace, cars, medicine,
robotics and many other aspects of our day-to-day life.
A sensor's sensitivity indicates how much the sensor's output changes when the
input quantity being measured changes. For instance, if the mercury in a
thermometer moves 1 cm when the temperature changes by 1 °C, the sensitivity is
1 cm/°C (it is basically the slope dy/dx assuming a linear characteristic). Some
sensors can also affect what they measure; for instance, a room temperature
thermometer inserted into a hot cup of liquid cools the liquid while the liquid heats
the thermometer. Sensors are usually designed to have a small effect on what is
measured; making the sensor smaller often improves this and may introduce other
advantages
Technological progress allows more and more sensors to be manufactured on a
microscopic scale as microsensors using MEMS technology. In most cases, a
microsensor reaches a significantly faster measurement time and higher sensitivity
compared with macroscopic approaches.sensors, critical analytical information can
be obtained by anyone, anywhere and at any time, without the need for
recalibration and worrying about contamination.
Classification of measurement errors

An infrared sensor

A good sensor obeys the following rules[5]:

● it is sensitive to the measured property
● it is insensitive to any other property likely to be encountered in its
application, and
● it does not influence the measured property.
Most sensors have a linear transfer function. The sensitivity is then defined as the
ratio between the output signal and measured property. For example, if a sensor
measures temperature and has a voltage output, the sensitivity is a constant with
the units [V/K]. The sensitivity is the slope of the transfer function. Converting the
sensor's electrical output (for example V) to the measured units (for example K)
requires dividing the electrical output by the slope (or multiplying by its
reciprocal). In addition, an offset is frequently added or subtracted. For example,
-40 must be added to the output if 0 V output corresponds to -40 C input.
For an analog sensor signal to be processed, or used in digital equipment, it needs
to be converted to a digital signal, using an analog-to-digital converter.

Sensors in nature
All living organisms contain biological sensors with functions similar to those of
the mechanical devices described. Most of these are specialized cells that are
sensitive to:
● Light, motion, temperature, magnetic fields, gravity, humidity, moisture,
vibration, pressure, electrical fields, sound, and other physical aspects of
the external environment
● Physical aspects of the internal environment, such as stretch, motion of
the organism, and position of appendages (proprioception)
● Environmental molecules, including toxins, nutrients, and pheromones
● Estimation of biomolecules interaction and some kinetics parameters
● Internal metabolic indicators, such as glucose level, oxygen level, or
osmolality
● Internal signal molecules, such as hormones, neurotransmitters, and
cytokines

Chemical sensor
A chemical sensor is a self-contained analytical device that can provide
information about the chemical composition of its environment, that is, a liquid or
a gas phase. The information is provided in the form of a measurable physical
signal that is correlated with the concentration of a certain chemical species
(termed as analyte). Two main steps are involved in the functioning of a chemical
sensor, namely, recognition and transduction. In the recognition step, analyte
molecules interact selectively with receptor molecules or sites included in the
structure of the recognition element of the sensor. Consequently, a characteristic
physical parameter varies and this variation is reported by means of an integrated
transducer that generates the output signal. A chemical sensor based on recognition
material of biological nature is a biosensor. However, as synthetic biomimetic
materials are going to substitute to some extent recognition biomaterials, a sharp
distinction between a biosensor and a standard chemical sensor is superfluous.
Typical biomimetic materials used in sensor development are molecularly
imprinted polymers and aptamers.
 WIRELESS POWER TRANSMISSION

Wireless power transfer (WPT), wireless power transmission, wireless

energy transmission (WET), or electromagnetic power transfer is the
transmission of electrical energy without wires as a physical link. In a wireless
power transmission system, a transmitter device, driven by electric power from a
power source, generates a time-varying electromagnetic field, which transmits
power across space to a receiver device, which extracts power from the field and
supplies it to an electrical load. The technology of wireless power transmission can
eliminate the use of the wires and batteries, thus increasing the mobility,
convenience, and safety of an electronic device for all users. Wireless power
transfer is useful to power electrical devices where interconnecting wires are
inconvenient, hazardous, or are not possible.
Wireless power techniques mainly fall into two categories, near field and far-field.
In near field or non-radiative techniques, power is transferred over short distances
by magnetic fields using inductive coupling between coils of wire, or by electric
fields using capacitive coupling between metal electrodes.] Inductive coupling is
the most widely used wireless technology; its applications include charging
handheld devices like phones and electric toothbrushes, RFID tags, induction
cooking, and wirelessly charging or continuous wireless power transfer in
implantable medical devices like artificial cardiac pacemakers, or electric vehicles.

Field regions[edit]
Electric and magnetic fields are created by charged particles in matter such as
electrons. A stationary charge creates an electrostatic field in the space around it. A
steady current of charges (direct current, DC) creates a static magnetic field around
it. The above fields contain energy, but cannot carry power because they are static.
However time-varying fields can carry power. Accelerating electric charges, such
as are found in an alternating current (AC) of electrons in a wire, create
time-varying electric and magnetic fields in the space around them. These fields
can exert oscillating forces on the electrons in a receiving "antenna", causing them
to move back and forth. These represent alternating current which can be used to
power a load.

Near-field (nonradiative) techniques[edit]

At large relative distance, the near-field components of electric and magnetic fields
are approximately quasi-static oscillating dipole fields. These fields decrease with
the cube of distance: (Drange/Dant) Since power is proportional to the square of the
field strength, the power transferred decreases as (Drange/Dant) or 60 dB per decade.
In other words, if far apart, doubling the distance between the two antennas causes
the power received to decrease by a factor of 26 = 64. As a result, inductive and
capacitive coupling can only be used for short-range power transfer, within a few
times the diameter of the antenna device Dant. Unlike in a radiative system where
the maximum radiation occurs when the dipole antennas are oriented transverse to
the direction of propagation, with dipole fields the maximum coupling occurs
when the dipoles are oriented longitudinally.

Resonant capacitive coupling

Resonance can also be used with capacitive coupling to extend the range. At the
turn of the 20th century, Nikola Tesla did the first experiments with both resonant
inductive and capacitive coupling.
 RFID TECHNOLOGY

The abbreviation of Radio frequency identification is RFID and is a term of

an applied science that explains the IT-infrastructure which is required to
gather, filter and advance the raw RFID information before processing it to
the backend systems. It avails radio waves for the automatic recognition of
people and objects; the RFID has the components like READER, RF tags,
and controllers.

There are various methods for the recognition or identification but the mostly
used method is the saving of a serial number that recognizes a person or
object and also other data. A RFID transponder or a RFID tag is the
combination of chip and the antenna, the antenna empowers the chip to end
the identified data to a reader. The reader changes the radio waves into the
form of digital data and then it is sent to a computer which makes the use of
it.

RFID:

In the year of 1945, Leon Theremin invented a secret watching tool for the
Soviet Union and it retransmits the radio waves with audio data. This
machine was the listening machine and not an identification tag but then also
it is said to be an invention of the RFID technology. The Mario Cardullo’s the
machine which was invented in the year of 1973 was the foremost true
ancestor of modern RFID. In the year of 1983, the initial patent related with
the radio frequency identification was granted to Charles Walton.

Components of RFID:
Generally, the RFID system consists of three components and they are as
follows:

● An antenna
● A transceiver with a decoder
● A transponder
1. Antenna: An antenna acts as a channel between the tag and the
transceiver; it also controls the system’s information acquisition
and information exchange. The antenna releases radio signals for
the activation of the tag and read and then write the information
to it, each RFID system has minimum one antenna for the
transmission and reception of the RF signals. A RFID system
may have a single antenna for both the transmission and reception
or different antennas for transmitting and receiving. The selection
of the antenna is done by depending on the range, if the tag is
close to the antenna then a short range antenna can be satisfied
but for the long ranges, the antenna with a long range is needed.
2. RF tags: the RF tags are of various shapes and sizes as per the
need of various applications. For example, the animal tracking
tags are of the size of pencil lead as they are inserted below the
skin, tags to identify the trees are of screw-shaped, the RF tag can
even be inserted into the labels or can be mounted on the
non-ferrous magnets. The RF tags are two types and they are as
follows:
○ Passive tags
○ Active tags
3. Passive tags: The onboard power is not consumed by the passive
tags and these tags possess unlimited life but have the shorter
range. The limitations of these tags are that they have low
information saving capacity, low output power and the small
range of communication.
 4. Active tags: The active tags are the genuine transmitters of the
data; these tags are more costly than the passive tags. If we
frequently avail the transmitters tends to decrease the lifetime of
the active tags.
5. Controllers: The controller acts as an interface between the one
or many antennas and the transmitting speed of antennas get
affected by the controllers and the interface machines. Few
controllers are designed in such a way that they can be
programmed to do the information translation and interrogation.

Working on the RFID System:

The working of the RFID system is as follows:

● The RFID system consists of a tag and the tag is made up of a

microchip with an antenna and also a reader with an antenna.
● Initially, the reader transmits the electromagnetic waves.
● The tag antenna receives these waves as it is received to turn the
waves.
● The passive tag of RFID supplies power to the circuit of the
microchip as it has the feature of extracting the power.
● The chip modulates the waves and after this reader transforms the
waves into digital information.
●

Applications of RFID:

The RFID has the applications in the following fields:

 ● In the consumer availability
● In the automatic checkout
● In the security control
● In the theft protection

Advantages of RFID:

The advantages of RFID are as follows:

● For a reading of the tag, the position of the tag does not need to
be in the line of sight in accordance with the receiver.
● These tags can save huge data and even obey the instructions.
● It has the feature of pinpointing the location.

Disadvantages of RFID:

The disadvantages of RFID are as follows:

● The programming of the RFID devices takes more time.

Problems:

● The issues related with the RFID are the technical problems,
security problems, and the privacy problems.