The selection of sensors
Introduction
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a sensor as “a device which detects or measures some condition or property, and records, indicates, or otherwise responds to the information received”. Thus, sensors have the function of converting a stimulus into a measured signal. The stimulus can be mechanical, thermal, electromagnetic, acoustic, or chemical in origin (and so on), while the measured signal is typically electrical in nature, although pneumatic, hydraulic and optical signals may be employed. Sensors are an essential component in the operation of engineering devices, and are based upon a very wide range of underlying physical principles of operation.
Given the large number of sensors on the market, the selection of a suitable sensor for a new application is a daunting task for the Design Engineer: the purpose of this article is to provide a straightforward selection procedure. The study extends that of Huber et al. [1] for the complementary problem of actuator selection. It will become apparent that a much wider choice of sensor than actuator is available: the underlying reason appears to be that power-matching is required for an efficient actuator, whereas for sensors the achievable high stability and gain of modern-day electronics obviates a need to convert efficiently the power of a stimulus into the power of an electrical signal. The classes of sensor studied here are detailed in the Appendices.
Section snippets
Sensor performance charts
In this section, sensor performance data are presented in the form of 2D charts with performance indices of the sensor as axes. The data are based on sensing systems which are currently available on the market. Therefore, the limits shown on each chart are practical limits for readily available systems, rather than theoretical performance limits for each technology. Issues such as cost, practicality (such as impedance matching) and reliability also need to be considered when making a final
Case studies
The performance charts described above, and documented in Appendix A Displacement sensors and transducers, Appendix B Accelerometers, Appendix C Force sensors and transducers, Appendix D Temperature sensors, can be used for the selection of a sensor once the requirements of a particular application are known. We shall consider the following case studies to illustrate the selection procedure
- 1.
selection of a displacement and a force sensor in order to determine the force versus deflection response
Concluding remarks
A wide array of sensors have evolved to allow measurement of strain, distance, displacement, velocity, acceleration, force and temperature, each specialised for a particular set of requirements. Fundamental theoretical limits on range, resolution, precision and sensing frequency constrain the performance of some sensors, but for many others the limits appear to be practical rather than fundamental. The enormous diversity both of sensor type and of performance creates the need for methods to
Acknowledgements
The support of the EPSRC is gratefully acknowledged.
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