Input energy/signal Transducer

Transducer output

Equivalence Variables or Parameters (measurands) Sensor

Electronic Circuit For Signal conditioning

Sensor output (Another form of Energy)

Transducers are the basic elements that convert or transform one form of energy to another form. A sensor is a sophisticated transducer in the sense that it contains some signal conditioning circuits capable of amplifying and refining the weak and raw signal that is available at the output of the transducer. Some of the commonly used signal conditioning circuits are amplifiers, filters, Analog to Digital Converter (ADC), etc.. Figure gives a illustration of a sensor.

Photoemissive transducer:
Dynode-1 (positive)

Light

Anode (positive with respect to dynode-4) Cathode

Dynode-2 (more +ve than Dynode-1)

Dynode-4 (mode +ve than Dynode-3)

Dynode-3 (more +ve than Dynode-2)

The photoemissive transducer is a vacuum chamber containing photoemmissive cathode, an anode and a photomultiplier consists of many dynodes. The light-sensitive cathode emits electrons by virtue of photoelectric effect.
Due to some environmental constraints and technical reasons in many applications the semiconductor based devices are not considered as the preferred choice to replace the vacuum chamber based transducers.

LDR

+ a + Constant V Current Source b

light
-

Photoconductive transducers are referred to as photoresistor or photoconductors. Other name of photoconductor is Light Dependant Resistor (LDR). The theory behind the transduction principle is that the photonic energy exceeds the bandgap (the gap between the valence band and the conduction band) of the material from which the transducer has been made.

Anode p n-type

Cathode

(a)

Emitter P n p

Collector

Does not have base terminal

Emitter n p n

Collector

(b)

Photodiodes are p-n junction diodes, connected in reverse bias condition. The reverse biased junction has high resistance. Incoming light excite electrons being bound in the crystal lattice and will generate free electronhole pairs in the junction. As a consequence, the resistance drops and the current increase, being proportional to the intensity of radiation or light. Phototransistor has three layers such as either p-n-p or n-p-n layers. There is no base terminal in the construction. Light falls on the collector-base junction.

Resistance in Kilo ohm

Resistance in ohm

10 Negative coefficient of resistance

100 Positive coefficient of resistance

Thermistros 5 50 RTDs

0 (a)

100

200

300

400 Temperature

500
0

0 (b)

100

200

300

400 Temperature

500
0

The common types of temperature transducers in use today are thermal resistors or thermistors. A thermistor is a piece of sintered semiconductor material, which exhibits a relatively large change in resistance proportional to a change in temperature. Thermistor possesses negative temperature coefficient of resistance. Thermistors can also be designed from metals. They have positive temperature coefficients of resistance.

Metal A a +

Temperature

Junction

EMF

b Metal B

A thermocouple is employed for the measurement of temperature. It consists of two dissimilar metals, joined together at one end, called thermocouple junction. When the temperature of this junction is different from the temperature of other parts of the metals an EMF is generated. The phenomenon is called Seebeck effect and the EMF produced is known as Seebeck EMF or simply thermovoltage. The variation of thermovoltage in response to the temperature variation is measured, calibrated and interpreted as temperature.

Thermoelectric circuit
Display unit

Metal B EMF Thermoelectric circuit

Metal B

Current

Metal A

J-1 (Hot junction)

J-2 (Cold junction)

If points a and b in the previous slide are connected a current will flow through the circuit. The circuit thus formed is called thermoelectric circuit.

To oscillator

Primary coil Movement Ferrite core

Secondary coil 1

Secondary coil 2

Output

The inductive pick-up type transducers are mainly used for displacement or position measurement. An immediate example of inductive pick-up based transducers is LVDT (Linear Variable Differential Transformer). LVDTs are similar to transformers. The operation uses two transformers sharing a common core and primary winding. The LVDT provides an AC output voltage signal, which is proportional to the displacement of its magnetic core passing through the windings. It has one primary coil, two secondary coils, and a ferrite core.

The two secondary coils have Primary voltage signal Signal of Secondary-1 coil been connected Signal of secondary-2 coil in such a way Secondary-1 plus Secondary-2 that when the Situation B core is at center Signal of Secondary-1 coil position, an Signal of secondary-2 coil equal voltage Secondary-1 plus Secondary-2 signal is induced Situation C in both the coils. The central posSignal of Secondary-1 coil ition is called Signal of secondary-2 coil electrical zero Secondary-1 plus Secondary-2 position (EZP). The magnitude of the output of the transducer increases irrespective of the direction of movement from the central position.
Situation A

d changes wrt measurand Plate displaced by the measurand Dielectric material moves

C
(c)

r 0
d

(a)

(b)

The geometrical dimensions and the property of the dielectric material of a parallel plate type capacitor are exploited to quantify many types of measurands. The principle of capacitive transducer is based on the change of distance, area and/or the permittivity. The basic equation governing the principle of operation is expressed above, where, d is the distance, A is the area, r is the relative permittivity of the dielectric material between the plates and 0 is the permittivity of the free space

Force/pressure

+++++++++ Accumulation of charge at the surface - - - - - - - - -

Some permanently polarized crystaline materials possess piezoelectricity, I.e., if their dimensions are changed as a result of mechanical force, electric charges proportional to the imposed force are accumulated on the surface upon which the force is imposed. The property is exploited to measure many physical parameters such as force, pressure, strain, torque, acceleration, sound, vibration, etc. The materials characterizing this property are referred to as piezoelectric materials.

Force

+ -

+ -

+ -

+ -

+ -

+ -

+ -

+ -

+ -

t = thickness

A = Area

When in operation, the piezoelectric transducer can be thought of as a parallel plate capacitor.

The piezoelectric transducer coupled with charge amplifier

Cf

Rf

Cp
Transducer

Rp

Cc
Cable

Rc

-A

Calibration And display

Charge amplifier

The voltage across the piezoelectric transducer (parallel plate capacitor) is proportional to the imposed force. The potential difference, V is very weak. Usually, the voltage is amplified by using an amplifier. The amplifier used for this purpose is referred to as charge amplifier due to the reasons that the accumulation of the charge effectively appeared as a difference in the potential across the material.

B = Magnetic field t = thickness Hall induced electric field + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ++

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ I = Current

Vh

The principle of operation of Hall effect transducers is as follows. If a metal carrying a current is placed near to the magnetic field in a proper manner, the charge carriers in the metal experience a force. As a result of which the charge carriers are forced to get themselves displaced. The phenomenon is called Hall effect. The direction of the displacement depends on the direction of current and the magnetic field.

I anode
.... .... . Anode plate Grid . ..... Cathode ...... .. .. Ionisation .. transducer _ Cathode Source + Transducer chamber _

Vacuum source

Vacumness to be measured

Ionisation transducers are mainly used for the measurement of vacuum. Pressure and vacuum are considered as synonyms, however, the word vacuum is used conveniently for low pressure usually below atmospheric pressure i.e., below 760 torr. Many automation applications require vacuum chambers with low pressure. To design such chambers or tubes, it becomes necessary to measure the vacuumness at the time of their manufacturing.

Light

Anode p-side n-side

Cathode

Forward-biased

+ V

Light Emitting Diodes (LED) are special junction diodes made up of semiconductor material that emit light when connected in a circuit containing a voltage source. LEDs are found in many applications areas including fiber optic data transmission, automation and control applications, computers, monitor, printer, modem, CD-ROM drive, and hard drive as indicator.

Output of the photodetector

Optical signal converted to electrical signal by the photodetector

Opaque

LED (light source) Line of action Photodetector

Time

Transparent

Rotary machine shaft

Opaque

Disk

Patterned disk

Very often, it is required to detect the position, velocity, acceleration and direction of movement of rotors, shafts, pistons of the actuating devices such as rotary machines and translational systems. This is achieved by the use of optical encoders. The optical encoder is a device, which provides encoded pulsed signals in response to the movement.

Light Source-1

Detector-1

Light Source-2

Detector-2

Disk with two concentric patterns

Pattern-2 Pattern-1 (a) Opaque Pattern-1 Transparent

Pattern-1
(b)

Channel-A (Detector-1) Clockwise rotation Channel-B (Detector-2)

Channel-A (Detector-1) Anti-clockwise rotation Channel-B (Detector-2)

To know the direction of rotation or movement of a rotor there must be a provision of two circular opaque and transparent pattern. The relative angular placements of these two patterns are such that the phase difference between the two signals is 90 degrees electrical. Such signals together are referred to as quadrature square-waves.

900
One cycle (c)

A binary conformant coded disk for the absolute encoder

0100 0101 0110 0111

0011

Track-1 Track-2 Track-3 Track-4

0010

0001

1000

0000

1001

1111

1010

1110 Transparent 1101 1100

1011

Basically, two types of encoders, such as incremental encoder and absolute encoder exist. Absolute encoder provides angular position and velocity value, which is derived from the pattern of the coded disc, but under a different scheme. These are more capable than incremental ones. They provide a unique output for every position. The coded disk consists of a number of concentric patterns of opaque and transparent segments. The concentric patterns are called tracks.

Binary pattern Track-1 Track-2 Track-3 Track-4

Gray pattern Track-1 Track-2 Track-3 Track-4

Opaque segment Transparent segment

In practice, binary patterned coding techniques are usually not employed in the absolute type encoder. The most preferred coding technique used in absolute encoder is gray coding due to the reasons that gray codes are reliable and are considered as versatile error detecting codes.

Fixed end Metal with lower coefficient of expansion

Metal with higher coefficient of expansion (a)

d Free end Metal with higher coefficient of expansion Metal with lower coefficient of expansion Free end

Fixed end

Fixed end

Before heating

(b)

Effect after heating

Bimetallic strips are used for the measurement of temperature. Two strips of metals are fused together to form a single rigid structure. The two metals have different temperature coefficients of expansion. One end of the strip is rigidly fixed. When heated, the metal having higher value expands more than the other, thus making the strip bend towards the metal with the lower value. The amount of bending is proportional to the temperature to be measured.

(c)

Pressure

Pressure transducers that use a bend tube are called Bourdon tube. It is one of the most widely used instruments for measuring the pressure of liquids and gases of all kinds, including steam, water, and air. Bourdon tubes are C structured tubes and they work on similar principle as that of bimetallic strips. The angular or linear displacement is proportional to the applied pressure (In case of bimetallic strip the displacement is proportional to the temperature).

Metal or semiconductor wire Connecting terminal-1

Connecting terminal-2 Wire type strain gauge

Flatted strain gauge

Strain-gauges are resistive pick-up type transducers. The resistance of the gauge changed in accordance with the input measurand. The strain gauge consists of metallic filament (a resistor) of approximately 0.03mm thickness, which is bonded or pasted directly to the strained surface by a thin layer of epoxy resin. When a load is applied to the surface, the resulting change in surface length hence the strain is communicated to the metallic filament and the corresponding strain is measured in terms of the electrical resistance of the filament.

Force, load, pressure or displacement Force, load, pressure or displacement Terminal-1 Strain gauge Terminal-2

Force, load, pressure or displacement

Fixed end

Strain gauge

Lever-type mechanical structure

Circular/elliptical mechanical structure

S-shaped mechanical structure

Strain gauges are used for the measurement of displacement, pressure, load or force, torque and strain. The gauge may be designed in the form of wire or thin-flatted surface. Metal or semiconductor materials can be used for fabricating the strain gauge, hence the name metal strain gauge or semiconductor strain gauge. The strain gauge sometimes is attached to a mechanical structure as shown.

Force, load, pressure

Tension strain gauge

Tension strain gauge

Compression strain gauge

Load cells are transducers intended for the measurement of high values of pressure, load and force. Load cell designs are categorized based on the type of output signals they generate. The outputs are pneumatic, hydraulic or electric. Because of linearity and size electric load cells are dominating the hydraulic and pneumatic type load cells. Electric load cells are either use inductive material, magnetostrictive transducer or a resistive material. The commonly used resistive load cell uses at least four strain gauges, which are adhered to a cylindrical tube.

Pressure, Force or Load

Diaphragm

Diaphragms are thin circular plates broadly used for the measurement of both low and high values of pressure, force or load. The principle is based on deflection.

Pressure, Force or Load

Pressure, Force or Load

Corrugated diaphragm

Corrugated diaphragm

Deflection, d Deflection, d

Corrugated diaphragm

(a) Capsule

(b) Bellows

In order to improve the sensitivity, corrugated diaphragms, are designed. These are called capsules and bellows. Bellows have more sensitivity than the capsules, although their application domains vary. The materials used for diaphragms are nickel, phosphor and stainless steel.

Object holders

Movement Switch roller

Output

Switch conveyor

Mechanical switches called microswitches, are on-off type devices. These are considered to be very important sensing elements, mainly used in robotics, NC machines, material handling systems, assembly lines etc., in order to sense the end points, arrival of the object, presence of work piece, end of task, etc.

Liquid Flow

P2
P1

Bernoullis principle is used for the measurement of fluid flow. Bernoullis equation is based on equation of continuity, which states that the fluid flowing in a tube of varying cross section, the mass flow rate is the same everywhere in the tube. If the pipe is deliberately made narrower at one point than along the rest of the pipe and then continuity equation is applied, one can find that the velocity of the fluid becomes greater in the narrow section, resulting a pressure difference at this point. The differential pressure is treated as a measure of mass flow rate.

Optical fibre based transducer that can measure pressure, force or load.
Plate Optical fiber LED (light source) Photodetector

Metal rods (a) Load, pressure, Force

(b)

The optical fibres are considered as a relatively new method for the measurement of many parameters, such as the intensity of light, pressure-force-load, strain, temperature, level, velocity, magnetic field to name a few.