DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND INSTRUMENTATION

B M S COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
(AUTONOMOUS COLLEGE UNDER VTU, BELGAUM)
BANGALORE – 560019
2018-19

ANALOG INTEGRATED CIRCUITS

SELF STUDY REPORT

WEIGHT SENSOR

COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Prof. PREETHI K MANE

TEAM MEMBERS:
PRANAV MAHAVEER(1BM16EI022)
PRAJWAL UPPOOR(1BM16EI020)
INTRODUCTION:
A weight sensor or a weighing scale is a device/instrument that is used to
determine the weight of a certain object accurately.
The weight sensor is constructed using a strain gauge,wheatsone’s bridge and an
instrumentation amplifier.The wheatsone’s bridge is constructed using resistors
of certain value, whose one arm is connected to the strain gauge.The
instrumentation amplifier used is an industry standard triple op-amp
configuration type amplifier.The purpose of this project is to successfully design
a weight sensor that can sense/measure weights of very small magnitude and
thereby, read the weights with high precision and accuracy.

ABSTRACT: To measure the weight of an object accurately we implement a

strain gauge.The basic concept behind this implementation is that the weight
of the object introduces a strain sensed by the strain gauge.Every strain gauge
has a resistance associated with it,therefore the induced strain causes a change
in this resistance.This change is proportional to the induced
strain.Therefore,the strain gauge forms one of the arms of the wheatsone’s
bridge,thereby the change in resistance is transformed to a change in
voltage,which is small in magnitude and therefore, an instrumentation
amplifier is used to amplify this change in voltage,also known as signal
conditioning.The output voltage obtained shall be then, calibrated to the
weight of the object.

SIGNAL CONDITIONING:
Normally full scale output voltages are in the 10 mV to 100 mV range, and need to be
amplified in a data acquisition system. Three circuits commonly used for amplification are
the one op amp differential amplifier, the three op amp instrumentation amplifier, or the two
op amp instrumentation amplifier. These amplifiers amplify the differential input voltage,
and reject the common mode input voltage. They are well-suited for use with Wheatstone
bridge sensors. Depending on design requirements one may be better suited than the other.
All three circuits require resistor matching to achieve good CMRR. Variations of these
amplifiers, which add gain and offset adjustment, can be found in various application
literature.
Here, we use the three-opamp configuration that has high open-loop gain and very
high common-mode rejection ratio,which is best suited for our weight sensor that measures
weight in the milli-gram range.
CIRCUIT COMPONENTS:
1.Strain gauge(equivalent resistor).
2.Wheatstone’s brige circuit(resistors,dc power supply)
3.Instrumentation amplifier(op-amps[uA-741],resistors,dual power supply)

STRAIN GAUGE:
A strain gauge operates on the principle that the physical strain of the gauge induces a
change in the resistance of the strain gauge.The physical strain is produced by the weight of
the object,placed on it.
The strain gauge comes with two different resistances 120Ω and 350Ω in the market,under
no strain condition.
Where the nominal resistance of the strain gauge when it is not deformed, is 350 Ω in our
case. ‘K’ represents the gauge factor of the strain gauge,and is given by,
ΔR
K R
ΔL
L
where,
R is the resistance of the strain gauge under no strain condition(350 Ω)
L is the length of the strain gauge strip.
L    strain
L
R  RK
Where, R is the change in resistance.

WHEATSONE’S BRIDGE:

The quarter-bridge configuration is shown where a single arm of the bridge is made up of a
strain gauge (the strain gauge can be thought of as a resistor). A difference measurement (V+
- V-) is related to the value of the weight of the object,which is then picked up by the
instrumentation amplifier and amplified to a value which can be further calibrated.The other
arms of the wheatstone’s bridge have fixed value resistors.
INSTRUMENTATION AMPLIFIER
INTRODUCTION:
An instrumentation amplifier is a differential op-amp circuit providing high input
impedances with ease of gain adjustment through the variation of a single resistor.It is a type
of differential amplifier that has been outfitted with input buffer amplifiers, which eliminate
the need for input impedance matching and thus make the amplifier particularly suitable for
use in measurement and test equipment. Additional characteristics include very low DC
offset, low drift, low noise, very high open-loop gain, very high common-mode rejection
ratio, and very high input impedances.
CIRCUIT:

Consider all resistors to be of equal value except for Rgain. The negative feedback of the
upper-left op-amp causes the voltage at point 1 (top of Rgain) to be equal to V1. Likewise,
the voltage at point 2 (bottom of Rgain) is held to a value equal to V2. This establishes a
voltage drop across Rgain equal to the voltage difference between V1 and V2. That voltage
drop causes a current through Rgain, and since the feedback loops of the two input op-amps
draw no current, that same amount of current through Rgain must be going through the two
“R” resistors above and below it. This produces a voltage drop between points 3 and 4 equal
to:

The regular differential amplifier on the right-hand side of the circuit then takes this voltage
drop between points 3 and 4, and amplifies it by a gain of 1 (assuming again that all “R”
resistors are of equal value). Though this looks like a cumbersome way to build a differential
amplifier, it has the distinct advantages of possessing extremely high input impedances on
the V1 and V2 inputs (because they connect straight into the non-inverting inputs of their
respective op-amps), and adjustable gain that can be set by a single resistor.

Manipulating the above formula a bit, we have a general expression for overall voltage gain
in the instrumentation amplifier:
Please note that the lowest gain possible with the above circuit is obtained with
Rgain completely open (infinite resistance), and that gain value is 1.

CIRCUIT IMPLEMENTED:

Vcc

Vo1

WORKING:
The circuit implemented shall represent a weight sensor under the following conditions:
1.The Strain gauge is not used in the circuit.Hence,there is no object whose weight can be
measured.Thereby,the output voltage represents the equivalent hypothetical weight.This will
be looked into during calibration.
2.Rather, to implement the strain gauge we use a decade resistance box which represents the
Rx of the wheatsone’s bridge.Here, we assume that a weight of 100mg brings about a change
of 1Ω that is, ΔR= 1Ω for every 100mg of weight introduced.
Therefore, the DRB varies accordingly for the different weights introduced.
Here, wheatstone’s bridge acts like a transducer that is it converts the change in strain(a
physical quantity) /or equivalent change in resistance to a change in voltage.As, the change
in voltage across the wheatstone’s bridge is quite small and lies in the mV or μV range,the
voltage needs to be amplified without any loading effect and signal loss (magnitude).For,
this we use a triple opamp configuration instrumentation amplifier which best suits our
circuit with it’s benefits as mentioned earlier in the introduction section of the
instrumentation amplifier.
AFTERMATH:
The output voltage obtained is then, compared to its theoretical counterpart .The gain
obtained by introducing different weights is calculated and then compared with its
theoretical counterpart.The output voltage then obtained is calibrated to a weight, which is
then compared to the assumed weight, respectively.

DESIGN:
The value of the strain gauge equivalent resistance = 350Ω
Practically,for the bridge to be balanced all other arms of the bridge also, need to be resistors
of the same value.The standard resistance available in the market is 330Ω.
Rx=DRB value=325.5Ω(under balance condition).
R1=330Ω+5%=325.5Ω(found using DMM)
R2=330Ω+5%=327.7Ω(found using DMM)
R4=330Ω+5%=327.7Ω(found using DMM)
The output voltage under balance condition is foud to be 2.1mV which is not zero due to the
presence of the output offset voltage contributed by the triple Op-amp configuration.
The value of R5is chosen on 10KΩ.
R3=Gain adjusting resistor=470Ω
R6=1kΩ
R7=10kΩ
Here,
Va=V1; Vb=V2; Vcc =5V; Vo1=V1’; Vo2=V2’; Vcc+ = +12V; Vcc- = -12V.

Overall Gain Calculation:

 Rg  R 3 
Av   (1  2 )  
 R1  R 2 
Rg = R3=470Ω
R1=R5=10kΩ
R3=R7=10kΩ
R2=R6=1kΩ

 10000  10000 
Av   (1  2 )    435.5532
 470  1000 
Assume, that a weight of 100mg induces a strain which corresponds to a ΔR=1Ω

OBSERVATION:
The practical circuit introduces certain non-linearities and the error is about 3% when the
amplifier operates in the linear region.
We have chalked out the following reasons for this error %:
1.The CMRR(COMMON-MODE-REJECTION-RATIO) is practically not very large(90dB).
2.The op-amp has a small dc offset voltage associated with it and can’t be practically
eliminated.
3.Wire resistance and input bias current(500nA) are other factors affecting the accuracy of
the output.
4.Voltage range of very small magnitude that is micro volts cannot be detected.
5.When the bridge is balanced the output voltage is not zero,but it is found to be = 2.1mV,
which is due to the output offset voltage associated with uA-741 operational amplifier.
6.Slight variation in the source power.The op-amp has a moderate PSRR(Power Supply
Rejection Ratio)=150μV/V.

TABULATION:
RESULT AND CALIBRATION:
The practically measured and calibrated weight is nearly equal to the
theoretically assumed weight.
AVERAGE ERROR%=2.1538
AVERAGE GAIN=427.5532.
The saturation level occurs for a an input weight beyond 600mgs for the
particular design, at an input voltage of 26.1mV.
Assume, that a weight of 100mg induces a strain which corresponds to a ΔR=1Ω.
The weight sensor can be calibrated to a particular output voltage to read the
weight of a particular object.From the tabulation, say, 4.912V needs to be
calibrated to 294.76 mgs.
While calibrating we need to ensure that an error of 2.16%,need to be taken into
consideration.
After considering the correction factor= - error% = +2.16%.Hence, the weight
=294.76+2% of 300 = 300.76mgs, which is close to the theoretically assumed
weight 300 mgs.
GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION:
VISUAL INFERENCE:
1.The output voltage vs the input voltage graph has a slope of 427.5532.The slope of this
graph represents the overall gain of the instrumentation amplifier.Therefore,the gain =
427.5532 which is close to the theoretical gain.Also, the graph is linear for input voltage less
than 3.mV,above which the corresponding output voltage is restricted by the power
supply/saturation region of the uA-741 opamp (about 11V).
2.The output voltage vs Weight of the object(assumed), has a
slope=1.635667.Although,linear the slope is not practically = 1.Hence, the practically
calibrated weight is close to the theoretically assumed weight,with an average error = 2.16%

CONCLUSION:
Instrumentation amplifiers don't need input impedance that makes this amplifier suits for
measurement purposes. These are used where great accuracy and stability of the circuit are
required for both short and long-term.The importance of an instrumentation amplifier is that
it can reduce unwanted noise that is picked up by the circuit.
In industries, physical quantities are converted into electrical signals using transducers and
the signal is amplified f or signal processing. For this, an instrumentation amplifier is used
instead of an Opamp.
Improved CMRR,lower PSRR,lower input bias current,lower input offset voltage and lower
output offset voltage,improved resistance variation and the ability to detect the μV range and
an increase in the op-amp’s saturation levels will ensure that the weight sensor’s error is
lesser than 1%.

REFERENCES:
[1]ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC MEASUREMNTS AND
INSTRUMENTATION by A.K.SHAWNEY
Published by DHANPAT RAI&Co.
[2]LINEAR INEGRATED CICUITS by D.Roy Choudhry and Shail B.Jain,
NEW AGE INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS.