Data Acquisition and Signal Processing for Smart Sensors
Nikolay V. Kirianaki, Sergey Y. Yurish, Nestor O. Shpak, Vadim P. Deynega · Measurement Science and Technology · 2002
According to the introductory text, this book is written for designers of high performance, highly efficient digital smart sensors and data-acquisition systems. Smart stands for gathering the instrument functions sensing, interfacing, signal processing and intelligence on a single chip. The book focuses on smart sensors with a quasi-digital output (frequency, time period etc), which find expression in a number of chapters on signal conversion techniques yielding this type of output. Chapter 1 reviews available smart sensors in the frequency-time ( f-t ) domain and shows the high performances of such sensor systems. Since most sensors produce an output voltage or a parameter change, conversion to the f-t domain is required, a subject that is covered by Chapter 2, with an extensive discussion on voltage-to-frequency conversion and a brief section on capacitance-to-period or duty-cycle conversion. Multichannel sensor systems are addressed in Chapter 3. The two classical approaches are compared: time-division channelling and space-division channelling, and the implications with respect to cost, chip area and sensitivity to transmission errors are discussed. As a logical consequence, Chapter 4 continues with a discussion on frequency-to-code conversion techniques. Several standard counting methods are compared, and a brief error analysis is given. This discussion continues in Chapter 5, with a more in-depth performance analysis of various non-traditional and self-adapting counting methods. Then follows a short Chapter 6 on signal processing techniques in the quasi-digital domain, and a larger Chapter 7 devoted to program-oriented conversion methods concludes this main topic of the book. The three final chapters address a variety of themes: multichannel sensing systems (car wheel speed sensing as an example of the material covered in Chapter 3), virtual instrumentation (also with examples from the automotive field), software design (on the instruction code level), instrument buses for smart sensing systems and network protocols. The very last topic concerns the smart interface - an IC enabling the interfacing of all kind of analogue sensors. Only two types are discussed: a UTI (universal transducer interface) in great detail and a TDC (time-to-digital converter) in a restricted way. At the end of the book we find a list of 188 references (many of them in Russian so not generally accessible), a note on the Sensors Web Portal, a glossary of terms and a useful index. In my view the book is of interest to the IC designer entering the field of smart sensors. In particular, it contains valuable information on signal conversion towards the frequency-time domain, a significant aspect of smart sensor design. Some other topics are discussed more cursorily, and should be considered as an invitation to consult more specific books on these subjects. Paul Regtien