Products Editor’s choice New products revolutionise sensor system design
Taking into account factors such as selecting the sensor, estimating system performance, layout and board assembly, design validation and prototyp- ing, the development of sensor systems can be tedious, long (sometimes taking months) and complicated, explains Anita Ganti, business unit director, precision systems business unit, National Semiconductor Corporation. To make the process easier, the company has intro- duced two configurable sensor analogue front-end (AFE) integrated circuits (ICs) with technology that works with new tools to fast-track signal path designs for a wide range of sensors. Using the ICs with the company’s WEBENCH Sensor AFE Designer, the user can simply select a sensor, design and configure the solution, and download configuration data to the sensor AFE. A typical sensing application requiring several boards and up to 25 components can be reduced to just one of the ICs, explains the company – a process that will take only minutes.
The first sensor AFE product is the LMP91000, a fully configurable potentiostat that provides a complete integrated signal path solution between a sensor and analogue-to-digital converter (ADC). This low power product is suitable for use in micro-power chemical and gas sensing applications and measures current in a potentiostat that is proportional to the gas concentration. It generates an output voltage
proportional to the cell cur- rent using a transimpedance amplifier. Cell voltage and output gain are user-selectable and allow the user to support a wide range of gases and con- centrations. The I2C interface allows the user to verify sensor performance and an
embedded temperature sensor provides an addi- tional output to monitor temperature.
The second is the LMP90100, a multi-channel 24-bit sensor AFE. Features include low power and diagnostics for high performance transmitter and transducer applications, while the continuous back- ground calibration eliminates offset and gain error over time and temperature. This also has a 24-bit sigma-delta ADC with a flexible input (mux) configu- ration to interface with any combination of differen- tial or single-ended inputs. Signal gains, sample rate and diagnostics are programmable for each sensor and two matched current drives are available. The WEBENCH Sensor AFE Designer includes technical specifications for hundreds of temperature, pressure and chemical sensors from a wide range of companies, with more being added as they are released. The system allows the user to download configuration data from their design to the sensor AFE, attach sensors and start the evaluation. A video can be seen at:
http://bit.ly/AFEvideo. National Semiconductor
www.national.com/sensorAFE
T: +49 (0) 81 4135 1443 Enter 651
10-50 ton load cell range now has OIML approval
ZEMIC’s BM14G4 compression load cell now has OIML R60 C4 accuracy class approval for legal-for-trade applications across its entire range – which spans 10 to 50 tons. This means it can be used in applications ranging from heavy industrial weighing appli- cations on mobile construction and mining equipment, rolling stock and hoppers, down to vehi- cle scales and weighing stations.
Available in the UK from
Variohm, the IP68 rated stainless steel sensor has built in surge pro- tectors, and has other approvals including EMC and ATEX Gas and Dust. An optional installation kit is also available, with all the necessary parts to commission the load cell into applications. Variohm EuroSensor T: 01327 351004
www.variohm.com
Enter 652 A simple solution
for meter reading M.A.C Solutions is distributing Aquas Smart Water Solutions’ AQLOG AMR Series battery-operated submersible device for automatic meter reading (AMR), which simply clips to the existing water meter.
The series uses advanced Image
Processing and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to pro- vide water companies with a solution that can be deployed remotely using GPRS or 3G wireless communications technology. It is also dustproof to IP68 and can operate in temperatures from -20˚C up to 75˚C and in extreme humidity environments. The device has an integral Modbus interface for data transmission and can store up to 50,000 records over five years, assuming readings are logged every 15 minutes.
Features of the AMR include an in- built data logging capability and alarm management, which means the water company can offer customers online access to their water bill, with the option of viewing their water usage profile. For water companies themselves, the AMR series offers increased water bill accura- cy and reduced water pipeline leakage as customers will be able to identify more leaks from their usage profile. As well as automatic meter reading, typical applications include water flow balance leakage analysis; minimum night flow analysis; water distribution network modelling, calibration and demand forecasting; and time- dependent water billing. M.A.C Solutions T: 01527 592999
www.mac-solutions.co.uk High performance mid-range signal analyser launched
Designers, engineers and operators need to reliably and effi- ciently discover transient spectral phenomena created by digital RF circuitry over wider operational bandwidths. To help, Tektronix has launched the mid-range RSA5000 Series Signal Analyser. With this, advanced time,
amplitude, and DPX trigger func- tions, combined with swept DPX, enable it to deliver discovery and capture of these intermittent and rapidly changing signals and up to 85 MHz bandwidth. This band- width now covers the entire ISM band where common technologies are used, such as Bluetooth, Zigbee, RFID, and Wireless LAN. The analyser’s DPX Live RF spectrum display allows quick detection of previously unseen signal behaviour, and improves test confidence by catching very short duration transients. The Swept DPX engine can collect up
6
to 292,000 spectrum updates per second over its full bandwidth, up to 85 MHz, and can sweep the DPX across the full input range of the RSA5000 Series, up to 6.2 GHz. DPX is also capable of measuring spectral transients as brief as 5.8µs. To capture transients for analysis, it offers frequency mask, frequency-edge, density, time- qualified and runt triggers. It can also be used to isolate hard to find hardware and software anom- alies. For faster troubleshooting, the analyser provides the ability to analyse captured data in
any domain at any time with correlated markers; and auto- matic pulse measurement and detection helps to simplify and save test time.
Along with wide bandwidth and DPX display, the RSA5000 Series offers spectrum and vector signal analysis with +17 dBm TOI and -154 dBm/Hz DANL at 1GHz along with superior low frequency performance with phase noise of -131 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offset, -150 dBm DANL at 10 MHz carrier frequency. Tektronix
Enter 654
www.tektronix.com FEBRUARY 2011 Instrumentation
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