Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ABSTRACT
A system for remotely reading a SAW temperature sensor has been adapted
from an existing, commercially available personnelherchandise detector
system. The SAW sensor is a Lithium Niobate wafer with an inter-digital
transducer (IDT)which is directly connected to a small transducer which is
directly connected to a small microwave antenna and two reflectors. The
reading system is a special Fhl radar. The FM electromagnetic signal is
transmitted by the system and picked up by the small antenna that is
connected to the IDT and is subsequently, converted into a surface acoustic
wave in the L f i b 0 3 wafer, reflected by the reflectors, converted back to an
electromagnetic wave and returned to the FM radar. The acoustic velocity
varies as a function of the ambient temperature and results in varying time
delay of the echoes, which is detected by the system. The resolution and
accuracy of such a system arr investigated theoretically and experimentally.
The operating principle is also suitable for other remote reading SAW
sensors.
I. INTRODUaION
I nput transducer
The diagram in Figure 2 shows the basic operating principle of the system.
An inter-digital transducer (IDT) and two reflectors are on the surface of a
YZ cut Lithium Niobate wafer. The transducer connects
Antenna,
Bd
generater
Tramducer
Output t r a n s d u c e r
Amplifier
counter
Figure 1. The SAW Oscillator Sensor
An electric amplifier connects two inter-digital transducers on a
piezoelectric wafer so that oscillations result because of the feedback of the
surface wave propagating from the input transducer to the output
transducer. The oscillation frequency satisfies the condition that the total
phase shift of the loop equals an integer multiple of 271 and varies with the
surface wave velocity. In the SAW-oscillator sensor, wires are needed to
connect the transducers to the amplifier. The fact that the frequency range of
- 583
S (t )
=
=
A COS[O( t )I
A COS[( oo+ pt I 2) t
wave speed is very sensitive to the temperature in the vicinity of the SAW
device and we propose the following relationship between the travel time 5
and the temperatureT
+ eo]
T = r0 [ 1
The echo from the first reflector input (S1)to the mixer is the same as the
original FM signal but with a time delay t1 and a different amplitude, so
that it is written as
+ CY. (T - To)]
(11)
where a is the temperature coefficient of time delay of the SAW device and
To is the ambient temperature.
From Eq. (8).
$d = Kro [ 1 + CY.(T - To)]
= aKroT+Kz,,(l-To)
= a T + b
tl
re
71
(3)
Ka.ro
(13)
where 'c1 is the time delay corresponding to the surface wave travelling from
the transducer to the first reflector and back. The delay can be written as
'1
AT= A q l a
2dlI V,
(4)
(14)
in terms of dl, the distance between the IDT and the frst reflector and v is
the surface acoustic wave velocity, and
the time delay due to the
electronic circuit and signal propagation.
The two reflectors are located such that the time delay at room temperature
To is
a= 9 4 ~ 1 0 - ~ / O C
(15)
rl = 1 ps and z2 = 1.1 p
(16)
The frequency ptl and the phase shift $1= cootl- p1?12 both depend on
the time delay tl. Since oo is usually much greater than ptl, the phase
shift is more sensitive than variation of the frequency.
Then,
From Eq. (3) we know that the total delay tl depends not only on the travel
time of the surface wave, which is a function of the temperature, but also
on the microwave propagation path. The latter varies with the distance
between the excitation transmitted and SAW device. To eliminate the error
from the variation of T ~a , second reflector is put on the wafer. The
corresponding time delay is 7*. Similar to the first reflector, we have the IF
corresponding to the second reflector as
~ ~) =( B~
t COS [ e(t - e2(t) 1
= B2 cos[ pty + wo$ - p$/21
In operation, the distance between the two antennas is within one or two
meters so that re can be neglected compared to r1or T ~ The
. temperature
variation can be in the range 0-200C. The first and second terms in Eq. (9)
are given by
where
$ = T~ + T~ and T~ = 2d$v
(7)
and $ is the distance between the the IDT and the second reflector. The
difference of the two phase shifts can be written as
T o = 0.1
ps
m0 / 2a = 905 MHz
(18)
KO
+p
oo - N 2 (tl
2 a x 905 x 10 - 1.2 x
= 2rr x 905 x lo6
=
(19)
x 1.05 I 2
(20)
The resolution of the phase shift is 1' so that the resolution of the
temperature reading is given by Eq.(14) as
where
K
(21)
~,-1JJ2(5+t1)"00
(5 + tl)
(9)
T = 2dIv
(10)
where T is the total travel time of the surface wave from the fxst reflector to
the second and back. This time being inversely proportional to the surface
AT
0.33 "C
(22)
Chamber
/
4-
w i t h antenna
rl
D i g i t a l thermometer
-100'
REFERENCES
0
0
9 = 2.89 T - 49.1
(23)