SMART SENSORS

The explosion of microprocessor-based applications involves the sensor field. While the
term smart sensor is not yet defined by any standard, there is active work in this area.
The term smart sensor or transducer is applied to devices incorporating a microprocessor
or microcontroller for some type of processing. A built-in microcontroller opens up new
options, such as the following:
Digital calibration and compensation allows all repeatable errors to be electronically
calibrated out. This includes the calibration errors of the internal signal-conditioning
circuits as well as the errors of the sensor. Compensation for linearity can be extended
to any order necessary to correct the linearity errors of a particular sensor. Temperature
errors can be compensated at least two orders of magnitude better than with passive analog
compensation.
Field recalibration without removal from service is possible through the use of portable
pressure standards and a simple service module used to store new correction coefficients
in the nonvolatile storage area of the microcontroller. There is no need to open the sensor
and risk the integrity of the enclosure during the recalibration procedure.
Self-diagnostics can be provided to insure that all components of the system are performing
up to specifications. The sensor can be made virtually fail safe for critical applications. The
degree of self-test capability must be weighed against sensor cost and performance criteria.
User programming can be integrated in the sensor to provide such functions as units
conversion, scaling, compensation for nonlinear input functions, counting, totalizing,
integration, differentiation, and PID closed-loop control.
Systems simplification can result from the use of smart sensors distributing functions
normally provided by the central computer in large systems to the sensor level. In large
systems, the use of sensors with multiplexed communications can reduce wiring costs
(often more than the sensor cost) by sharing one twisted pair or coax for tens to thousands
of sensors. All major automotive companies are actively pursuing multiplexed wiring as
a possibility for the cars of the year 2000.
Digital compensation provides not only a lower-cost solution due to a reduction in test
and calibration time, but also makes a high-accuracy application requiring a high degree
of temperature compensation feasible. Applications such as process control can benefit
from a reduced number of models by using the improved accuracy to increase the turndown
ratio of a sensor, thereby reducing the required number of pressure ranges.
Remote communication and unattended operation become an easy implementation feature.
Addressability of the sensor allows efficient communication.
An example of a smart sensor application taken to the ultimate level might be the air
data computer used on military and commercial jet aircraft. The sensor measures pressure
and temperature to perform a critical altitude measurement. A state-of-the-art system based
on a piezoresistive pressure sensor achieves a total error band of 0.02 percent FSO over a
55 to 100C temperature range and over a period of three years without recalibration for
any pressure within the calibrated range.35
The block diagram shown in Fig. 63.31 outlines functionally the components of a smart
sensor for a 4- to 20-mA current loop output transmitter. In this all-digital open-loop design,
the sensors measurand (e.g., pressure) and temperature outputs are measured and the true
value of the measurand is calculated either from a look-up table or an algorithmic calculation
or a combination of the two. The implementation technique must be selected based on a number
of factors such as response time, accuracy, and power budget for the finished sensor.

Once the true value of the measurand is determined, it is converted back to analog form with
the appropriate scaling factor and offset and is delivered to the output circuit which buffers the
signal
for transmission to the control system. In a very high accuracy application, the error in the D/
A converter and output circuit could also be included in the algorithms used to correct the signal.
For lower-performance smart sensors with high-bandwidth requirements, such as an
automotive MAP sensor, an alternate approach to compensation can be used that modifies
the uncorrected sensors output in a feedforward approach with temperature as the only
measured parameter. The calibration coefficients for the feedforward correction circuit must
be measured and stored along with the corrections for the sensor element (Fig. 63.32).
For high-speed applications, this approach has the advantage that only temperature
needs to be measured, and depending on the initial error slopes of the uncorrected sensor,
FIGURE 63.31 High-performance two-wire 420-mA smart transmitter.
FIGURE 63.32

Feedforward corrected smart sensor for high-speed medium-accuracy applications.

the temperature resolution requirements can be quite modest. The accuracy of the feedforward
correction chip must be quite good and also very stable, but the dynamic range
(number of bits) of the D/A converters on the chip is quite small.
Typically the integrated on-chip A/D available in most microcontrollers is adequate for
achieving 10- to 12-bit sensor accuracy with this approach, but at the expense of a highly
customized ASIC chip for the feedforward correction circuit. Additionally, a low-cost slow
microcontroller can be used since temperature does not change very quickly, and therefore the
required calculations can be done quite slowly. While there is no clear definition of a smart sensor,
there is an active movement toward some kind of standardization. The sample of standard
and implementation activity in the emerging field of smart sensors include the following: