EMBEDDED SYSTEM DESIGN

SENSOR AND ACTUATOR

Doan Duy, Ph. D.
Email: [email protected]

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 Objectives

Acquiring basic concepts about Sensors

and Actuator

Knowing some special sensors for ESD

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 Contents

 Introduction to basic concepts on Sensor

and Actuator
 Composition of sensors in different
applications

 Some special sensors and actuator

 Related issues to Sensor

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 Definition of sensor and actuator

What is a sensor? An actuator?

 A sensor is a device that measures a physical
quantity
  Input / “Read from physical world”

 An actuator is a device that modifies a physical

quantity
  Output / “Write to physical world”

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 Examples of sensors and actuators
 Sensors:  Actuators:
 Cameras  Motor controllers
 Accelerometers
 Solenoids
 LEDs, lasers
 Gyroscopes  LCD and plasma displays
 Strain gauges  Loudspeakers
 Microphones  Switches
 Magnetometers  Valves
 Radar/Lidar
 Physical dynamics
 Noise
 Chemical sensors  Bias
 Pressure sensors  Sampling
 Switches  Interactions
…
 …
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 Self-Driving Car

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 Sensor-Rich Cars

09/27/2024
 Source: Analog Devices
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 Sensor-Rich Cars

Source: Wired Magazine

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 Magnetometers
A very common type is the Hall
Effect magnetometer.
Charge particles (electrons, 1) flow
through a conductor (2) serving as a
Hall sensor. Magnets (3) induce a
magnetic field (4) that causes the
charged particles to accumulate on
one side of the Hall sensor, inducing
a measurable voltage difference from
top to bottom.
The four drawings at the right
illustrate electron paths under
different current and magnetic field
polarities.
Edwin Hall discovered this effect
Image source: Wikipedia Commons
in 1879.
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 Aliasing

Sampled data is
vulnerable to aliasing,
where high frequency
components A high frequency sinusoid sampled at a low rate looks
masquerade as low just like a low frequency sinusoid.
frequency components.

Careful modeling of
the signal sources and
analog signal
conditioning or digital
oversampling are Digitally sampled images are vulnerable to aliasing as
well, where patterns and edges appear as a side effect of
necessary to counter the the sampling. Optical blurring of the image prior to
effect. sampling avoids aliasing, since blurring is spatial low-
pass filtering.

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 Roadmap

 How Accelerometers work

 Affine Model of Sensors

 Bias and Sensitivity

 Faults in Sensors

 Brief Overview of Actuators

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 Accelerometers
The most common design measures the distance between a plate fixed
to the platform and one attached by a spring and damper. The
measurement is typically done by measuring capacitance.

 Uses:
 Navigation
 Orientation
 Drop detection
 Image stabilization
 Airbag systems

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 Spring-Mass-Damper Accelerometer

By Newton’s second law,

F=ma.
For example, F could be
the Earth’s gravitational
force.
The force is balanced by
the restoring force of the
spring.

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 Spring-Mass-Damper System

Exercise: Convert to an integral equation with initial conditions.

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 Measuring tilt

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 Feedback dramatically improves accuracy and dynamic range
of microaccelerometers.

The Berkeley Sensor and V/F

Actuator Center (BSAC)

created the first silicon
microaccelerometers, MEMS
devices now used in airbag
systems, computer games, Digital

disk drives (drop sensors), etc. T

+
-

M. A. Lemkin, “Micro Accelerometer

Design with Digital Feedback Control”,
Ph.D. dissertation, EECS, University of
California, Berkeley, Fall 1997
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 Difficulties Using Accelerometers

 Separating tilt from acceleration

 Vibration
 Nonlinearities in the spring or damper
 Integrating twice to get position: Drift

Position is the integral of

velocity, which is the integral
of acceleration. Bias in the
measurement of acceleration
causes position estimate error
to increase quadraticly.

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 Measuring Changes in Orientation: Gyroscopes

Optical gyros: Leverage the Sagnac effect, where a laser

light is sent around a loop in opposite directions and the
interference is measured. When the loop is rotating, the
distance the light travels in one direction is smaller than
the distance in the other. This shows up as a change in the
interference.
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 Inertial Navigation Systems
Dead reckoning
 Combinations of: plus GPS.
 GPS (for initialization and periodic correction).
 Three axis gyroscope measures orientation.
 Three axis accelerometer, double integrated for position
after correction for orientation.

 Typical drift for systems used in aircraft have to be:

 0.6 nautical miles per hour
 tenths of a degree per hour

 Good enough? It depends on the application!

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 Design Issues with Sensors
 Calibration
 Relating measurements to the physical phenomenon
 Can dramatically increase manufacturing costs
 Nonlinearity
 Measurements may not be proportional to physical phenomenon
 Correction may be required
 Feedback can be used to keep operating point in the linear region
 Sampling
 Aliasing
 Missed events
 Noise
 Analog signal conditioning
 Digital filtering
 Introduces latency
 Failures
 Redundancy (sensor fusion problem)
 Attacks (e.g. Stuxnet attack)
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 Sensor Calibration

 Affine Sensor Model

 Bias and Sensitivity

 Example: Look at ADXL330 accelerometer datasheet

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 Analog Devices ADXL330 Data Sheet

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 Faults in Sensors

 Sensors are physical devices

Like all physical devices, they suffer wear and tear, and can
have manufacturing defects

Cannot assume that all sensors on a system will work

correctly at all times

 Solution: Use redundancy

  However, must be careful how you use it!

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 Violent Pitching of Qantas Flight 72 (VH-QPA)

An Airbus A330 en-route from Singapore to Perth on 7

October 2008
• Started pitching violently, unrestrained passengers hit the
ceiling, 12 serious injuries, so counts it as an accident.
• Three Angle Of Attack (AOA) sensors, one on left (#1),
two on right (#2, #3) of nose.
• Have to deal with inaccuracies,
different positions, gusts/spikes, failures.

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 A330 AOA Sensor Processing
 Sampled at 20Hz
 Compare each sensor to the median of the three
 If difference is larger than some threshold for more than 1 second, flag
as faulty and ignore for remainder of flight
 Assuming all three are OK, use mean of #1 and #2 (because they are on
different sides)
 If the difference between #1 or #2 and the median is larger than some
(presumably smaller) threshold, use previous average value for 1.2
seconds
 Failure scenario: two spikes in #1, first shorter than 1 second, second
still present 1.2 seconds after detection of first
 Result: flight control computers commanding a nose-down aircraft
movement, which resulted in the aircraft pitching down to a maximum
of about 8.5 degrees
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 How to deal with Sensor Errors

 Difficult Problem, still research to be done

 Possible approach: Intelligent sensor communicates

an interval, not a point value.
 Width of interval indicates confidence, health of
sensor

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 Sensor Fusion: Marzullo’s Algorithm

 Axiom: if sensor is non-faulty, its interval contains the

true value
 Observation: true value must be in overlap of non-faulty
intervals
 Consensus (fused) Interval to tolerate f faults in n:
Choose interval that contains all overlaps of n − f; i.e.,
from least value contained in n − f intervals to largest
value contained in n − f

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 Example: Four sensors, at most one faulty

S1

S2

S3
S4
Probable value

• Interval reports range of possible values.

• Of S1 and S4, one must be faulty.
• Of S3 and S4, one must be faulty.
• Therefore, S4 is faulty.
• Sound estimate is the overlap of the remaining three.

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 Example: Four sensors, at most one faulty

S1

S2

S3
S4
??
??

• Suppose S4’s reading moves to the left

• Which interval should we pick?

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 Example: Four sensors, at most one faulty

S1

S2

S3

S4

consensus

• Marzullo’s algorithm picks the smallest interval that is sure

to contain the true value, under the assumption that at most
one sensor failed.
• But this yields big discontinuities. Jumps!

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 Schmid and Schossmaier’s Fusion Method

 Recall: n sensors, at most f faulty

 Choose interval from f+1st largest lower bound to f+1st

smallest upper bound

 Optimal among selections that satisfy continuity conditions.

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 Example: Four sensors, at most one faulty

S1

S2

S3

S4

consensus

• Assuming at most one faulty, Schmid and Schossmaier’s

method choose the interval between:
• Second largest lower bound
• Second smallest upper bound
• This preserves continuity, but not soundness

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 Motor Controllers

Bionic hand from Touch Bionics

costs $18,500, has and five DC
motors, can grab a paper cup
without crushing it, and turn a key
in a lock. It is controlled by nerve
impulses of the user’s arm,
combined with autonomous
control to adapt to the shape of
whatever it is grasping. Source:
IEEE Spectrum, Oct. 2007.

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 Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM)

Delivering power to
actuators can be
challenging. If the device
tolerates rapid on-off
controls (“bang-bang”
control), then delivering
power becomes much
easier.

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 Model of a Motor
Back electromagnetic
force constant
 Electrical Model: Angular velocity

Mechanical Model (angular version of Newton’s second

law):

Moment of Torque Friction Load

inertia constant torque
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 Summary for Lecture
 Overview of Sensors and Actuators

 How Accelerometers work

 Affine Model of Sensors

 Bias and Sensitivity

 Faults in Sensors

 Brief Overview of Actuators

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 Q&A

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