INTRODUCTION TO SENSORS

History has shown that advancements in materials science and engineering have been important drivers
in the development of sensor technologies. For instance, the temperature sensitivity of electrical
resistance in a variety of materials was noted in the early 1800s and was applied by Wilhelm von
Siemens in 1860 to develop a temperature sensor based on a copper resistor. The high resonance
stability of single-crystal quartz, as well as its piezoelectric properties, have made possible an
extraordinarily wide range of high performance, affordable sensors that have played an important role in
everyday life and national defense. More recently, a new era in sensor technology was ushered in by the
development of large-scale silicon processing, permitting the exploitation of silicon to create new
methods for transducing physical phenomena into electrical output that can be readily processed by a
computer. Ongoing developments in materials technology will permit better control of material
properties and behavior, thereby offering possibilities for new sensors with advanced features, such as
greater fidelity, lower cost, and increased reliability.

As noted in the preface, the Committee on New Sensor Technologies: Materials and Applications was
asked to identify novel sensor materials that could benefit the manufacture and operation of advanced
systems for the Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and to
identify research and development (R&D) efforts that could accelerate the development and
incorporation of these emerging sensor materials in particular applications with potentially high payoff.
To provide a foundation for its recommendations in these areas, the committee began by assessing the
current status of sensor technologies. Early in this assessment, the committee found that applications,
not materials, drive new sensor development. Therefore the committee identified a conceptual
framework that could relate sensor materials to application needs within which the importance of
particular sensor materials could be determined

Given the extensive body of published work relating to the broad, multidisciplinary subject of sensor
technologies, the committee prepared a summary bibliography drawn from the recent literature
(Appendix A). The bibliography includes review articles, books, and monographs relating to the wide
range of sensor technologies. These references can form a basis from which a more detailed study of any
particular sensing technology, principle, or application can be initiated. Several key journals dealing with
sensing have been included in the bibliography; they are suggested as starting points for investigating
the most recent developments and trends in sensor technologies. Additional information is available
from the reference list at the end of each chapter.

Despite the extensive published literature that treat the fundamentals of sensor technology,
considerable ambiguity exists in sensor definition and classification, as illustrated by a recent buyer's
guide for sensors in which two lists of sensor suppliers are provided, one based on properties sensed and
the other on technologies used (Sensors, 1992). The latter list includes both physical phenomena (for
example, acoustic, electrochemical, Hall effect and infrared sensors), and material types (such as
bimetallic, fiberoptic, thick-and thin-film, and zirconium oxide sensors).

Understanding the physical or chemical effects that yield useful transduction is important in selecting
and designing sensors. However, these effects by themselves are usually not sufficient to establish an
unambiguous sensor classification, since typical sensors may use more than one effect. A simple example
is a diaphragm pressure gauge. The diaphragm uses one form of mechanical energy to create another
(pressure generates displacement and strain); however, the creation of an electrical signal from the
displacement or strain can be accomplished using many approaches. The diaphragm could be made of a
piezoelectric material, in which the air would induce an electrical charge; an inductive or capacitive
effect could be employed to measure the charge related to the strain and the deflection and thereby
infer the pressure. Thus understanding all of the possible field effects and features of transducer
materials behavior provides the most complete set of sensor design options.

In order to accelerate the incorporation of emerging sensor materials in new applications, it is critically
important that the sensor materials community be able to readily identify sensing needs that candidate
materials could fulfill.

In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, 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,[1]
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, urobotics and many other aspects of our day-to-day lifeIn the broadest
definition, a sensor is a device, module, 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
INTRODUCTION OF TEMPERATURE SENSORS:

Temperature is the most-measured process variable in industrial automation. Most commonly, a

temperature sensor is used to convert temperature value to an electrical value. Temperature Sensors are
the key to read temperatures correctly and to control temperature in industrials applications.

A large distinction can be made between temperature sensor types. Sensors differ a lot in properties
such as contact-way, temperature range, calibrating method and sensing element. The temperature
sensors contain a sensing element enclosed in housings of plastic or metal. With the help of conditioning
circuits, the sensor will reflect the change of environmental temperature.

In the temperature functional module we developed, we use the LM34 series of temperature sensors.
The LM34 series are precision integrated-circuit temperature sensors, whose output voltage is linearly
proportional to the Fahrenheit temperature. The LM34 thus has an advantage over linear temperature
sensors calibrated in degrees Kelvin, as the user is not required to subtract a large constant voltage from
its output to obtain convenient Fahrenheit scaling. The LM34 does not require any external calibration or
trimming to provide typical accuracies of ±1.2°F at room temperature and ±11.2°F over a full -50 to +300°F
temperature range. The LM34 is rated to operate over a -50° to +300°F temperature range
YINTRODUCTION OF PRESSURE SENSOR:

A pressure sensor is a device for pressure measurement of

gases or liquids. Pressure is an expression of the force
required to stop a fluid from expanding, and is usually
stated in terms of force per unit area. A pressure sensor
usually acts as a transducer; it generates a signal as a function of the pressure imposed. For the purposes
of this article, such a signal is electrical.

Pressure sensors are used for control and monitoring in thousands of everyday applications. Pressure
sensors can also be used to indirectly measure other variables such as fluid/gas flow, speed, water level,
and altitude. Pressure sensors can alternatively be called pressure transducers, pressure transmitters,
pressure senders, pressure indicators, piezometers and manometers, among other names.

Pressure sensors can vary drastically in technology, design, performance, application suitability and cost.
A conservative estimate would be that there may be over 50 technologies and at least 300 companies
making pressure sensors worldwide.

INTRODUCTION OF OXYGEN SENSORS:

An
oxygen
sensor (or
lambda sensor, where lambda refers to air–fuel equivalence ratio, usually denoted by λ) is an electronic
device that measures the proportion of oxygen (O2) in the gas or liquid being analysed.

It was developed by Robert Bosch GmbH during the late 1960s under the supervision of Dr. Günter
Bauman. The original sensing element is made with a thimble-shaped zirconia ceramic coated on both
the exhaust and reference sides with a thin layer of platinum and comes in both heated and unheated
forms. The planar-style sensor entered the market in 1990 and significantly reduced the mass of the
ceramic sensing element, as well as incorporating the heater within the ceramic structure.[1] This
resulted in a sensor that started sooner and responded faster.

The most common application is to measure the exhaust-gas concentration of oxygen for internal
combustion engines in automobiles and other vehicles in order to calculate and, if required, dynamically
adjust the air-fuel ratio so that catalytic converters can work optimally, and also determine whether the
converter is performing properly or not. Divers also use a similar device to measure the partial pressure
of oxygen in their breathing gas.

Oxygen sensors are also used in hypoxic air fire prevention systems to continuously monitor the oxygen
concentration inside the protected volumes.

There are many different ways of measuring oxygen. These include technologies such as zirconia,
electrochemical (also known as galvanic), infrared, ultrasonic, paramagnetic, and very recently, laser
methods