Pressure sensors

Temperature sensors for embedded systems

The purpose of measurements made with the use of temperature sensors is to obtain information that determines the degree of cooling or heating of the measurement object. One of the most popular sensor designs for temperature measurement is thermistor sensors that can be found in medical thermometers. A change in body temperature causes a change in the value of the current flowing through the thermistor, the resistance of which may also change. The thermistor is made of semiconductor materials that are particularly sensitive to temperature changes. The resistance of the thermistor decreases as the temperature of the measuring object increases. In turn, thermocouple sensors use wires made of an alloy of two pieces of metal to measure the temperature. The design of the thermocouple sensor uses the Seebeck effect in its operating principle. The difference in thermodynamic characteristics of the metals in which the test lead alloy is made produces a strong potential difference proportional to the temperature of the measurement environment. The use of a thermocouple allows for a wide measuring range. The thermocouple sensor reads the thermocouple voltage which is its output signal. In infrared temperature sensors, an infrared light beam is sent towards the measuring object and reflected back to the sensor. The signal from the IR sensor is converted into a voltage proportional to the emissivity of the measuring object and depends on the sensor calibration.

Measurement of environmental humidity

Humidity sensors are one of the most important devices that are used in home appliances, as well as in industry, medical apparatus and environmental engineering. Humidity determines the amount of water present in the atmosphere, which affects, inter alia, on the well-being of living organisms, electronic devices sensitive to the humid atmosphere as well as the operation of electrical insulating systems of transformers and power lines, especially those operating at high and highest voltage. One of the popular designs of humidity sensors is a capacitive sensor that measures relative humidity. They use a capacitor whose dielectric is made of hygroscopic polymer and is sensitive to changes in humidity, which causes changes in the capacitance of the measuring capacitor. Such sensors are used, among others in observing changes in the frequency of electric vibrations of an LC oscillator when testing pharmaceutical products. The medicine in the form of a test preparation acts as a dielectric which is introduced between the measuring electrodes. The frequency of the oscillation of the oscillator changes with the humidity surrounding the test specimen.

Pressure sensors for embedded systems

The Botland store offers a wide range of precise pressure sensors from renowned manufacturers such as Adafruit, DFRobot or Polou. These sensors use high-quality Bosch piezoelectric transducers in their circuits, which enable height measurement with an accuracy of up to 10cm. The I2C and SPI interface enables cooperation with Arduino boards - there are also libraries dedicated to digital barometers. The accuracy of pressure measurement in our sensors is 8Pa. Digital pressure sensors for embedded systems can be successfully used in meteorological station projects and in drones and other models of remote-controlled aircraft.