A generic multielement microsystem for portable wireless applications

Abstract

An open-architecture microsystem that can be populated with a variety of sensors and actuators is described. The microsystem is designed for low-power wireless applications where small size and high sensor accuracy are important. It consists of an in-module microcontroller connected to multiple front-end transducers through an intramodule sensor bus. An external interface allows internally processed data to be output through either a hard-wired input/output port or a radio-frequency transmitter. The present microsystem is configured for environmental monitoring and measures temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity, and acceleration/vibration. It occupies less than 10 cc, consumes an average of 530 W from 6 V, and transmits data up to 50 m.System features such as active power management, the intramodule sensor bus, generic bus interface circuitry, and in-module sensor compensation based on bivariate polynomials are discussed.

Communication Buses and Protocols for Sensor Networks

“…Figure 7 shows a typical two-layered bus network using this architecture and illustrates ideal locations for signal conditioning, signal processing, and networking hardware which minimizes the required electronics in the overall system. Third, a significant advantage of this approach is a system-wide reduction in power consumption [9]. Because the resources can be shared and optimized within each microsystem node, each node can operate with minimum power demands, and the layering of signal processing hardware allows the network to intelligently manage resources to reduce redundant operations.…”

“…Other features such as data bandwidth, power limitations, physical size, and the amount of sensor signal processing required play a significant role in establishing the architectural requirements of a sensor network. Although it is not feasible to define a standard architecture which is simultaneously optimized for all sensor applications, it is useful to review typical architectures and discuss the criteria for choosing an appropriate sensor network [9].…”

Highly Adaptive Transducer Interface Circuit for Multiparameter Microsystems

“…M ULTI-PARAMETER microsystems take advantage of the diversity of miniature sensors available through microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and nanoscale technologies to realize highly integrated systems, combining various transducers with interface, signal processing, and communication electronics [1]- [3]. The transducer interface circuitry plays a very important role in such systems, extracting useful data from a variety of device types (resistive, capacitive, etc.)…”

A wireless low-range pressure sensor based on P(VDF-TrFE) piezoelectric resonance

“…Further improvement on sensor fabrication and performance are discussed in [2][3][4]. In [5], the pressure sensor is integrated into a specifically designed micro-system, which includes both data acquisition and data processing modules. However, in-vivo pressure sensing requires mechanical robustness and the capacitive pressure sensor is usually kind of fragile due to the thin membrane structure and requires complex.…”