Front. Mech. Eng. China 2009, 4(4): 401406 DOI 10.

1007/s11465-009-0047-4

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Lei QIU, Shenfang YUAN

Low crosstalk switch unit for dense piezoelectric sensor networks

Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag 2009

Abstract Structural health monitoring (SHM), on the basis of piezoelectric (PZT) sensors and lamb wave method, is efcient in estimating the state of monitored structures. Furthermore, to monitor large-scale structures, dense piezoelectric sensor networks are required, which usually contain many piezoelectric sensor pairs called actuator-sensor channels. In that case, considering the few data acquisition channels especially in the data acquisition board with a high sampling rate and limited quantity of signal ampliers used in an integrated computer system, a switch unit is adopted to switch to different channels. Because of the high frequency and power of the lamb wave excitation signal, there exists a crosstalk signal in the switch unit. A large crosstalk signal is mixed into the response signal so that the on/off-line signal processing task is difcult to achieve. This paper rst analyzes the crosstalk signal phenomenon, describes its production mechanism, and proposes a method to reduce it. Then a 24switch channel low crosstalk switch unit based on a digital I/O board PCI7248 produced by Adlink technology is developed. An experiment is implemented to validate it. Its low crosstalk characteristics make it promote the real application of the SHM based active lamb wave method. Finally, a general software program based on LabVIEW software platform is developed to control this switch unit. Keywords structural health monitoring (SHM), piezoelectric (PZT) sensor networks, switch unit, crosstalk signal

Introduction

Received September 9, 2008; accepted December 1, 2008 Lei QIU, Shenfang YUAN ( ) The Aeronautical Science Key Laboratory for Smart Materials & Structures, Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China E-mail: ysf@nuaa.edu.cn

Structural health monitoring (SHM) technology is a reliable, efcient, and economical approach to increase the safety and reduce the maintenance cost of high performance structures [1]. Among the existing structural health monitoring methods, the piezoelectric (PZT) sensor and Lamb wave-based method is a promising one and has been studied by researchers in recent years [27]. The Lamb wave is a type of plate wave consisting of a variety of simultaneous modes with different velocities. The main characteristic of this method is that the characteristics of the Lamb wave transmitting in the structure can be changed when damage occurs in the structure. The damage can be estimated by comparing the characteristic parameters of Lamb waves that are monitored before or after the damage event. For a small-scale structure, only a few PZT sensors are required for monitoring. However, to monitor large-scale structures, dense PZT sensor networks are required. These types of networks usually contain many PZT sensor pairs called actuator-sensor channels. Considering that data acquisition channels provided by one data acquisition board, especially those boards with high sampling rate, are limited, and the limited quantity of signal ampliers used in an integrated computer system, a switch unit must be designed to switch different channels to achieve the multi-channel switch function. For a typical PZT sensor based on an SHM system, the excitation signal sent to a PZT element is usually a signal with high frequency and high amplitude, whereas the structural response signal sensed by a PZT sensor is a typical signal with small amplitude. In this case, the crosstalk between the excitation channel and the sensing channel has to be dealt with carefully to ensure that the response signal cannot be interfered by the crosstalk. When the crosstalk is at a high level, the on/off-line signal processing task is difcult to achieve. Considering the multi-channel PZT sensor array switch system for SHM, till now, only Acellent Corporation in the

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USA reported that they developed an instrument system called smart-suitcase to solve the switch problem [8,9]. However, they did not publish any literature on the details of the development. Other researchers also did some research about this problem. Jared et al. developed a relaybased hardware in conjunction with PZT active-sensing techniques for SHM [10]. Giurgiutiu Victors research group developed a switch unit used to control the actuatorsensor channels [11,12]. However, they did not use the power amplier in their system. First, this paper discusses the crosstalk phenomenon. Then a switch unit consisting of two low crosstalk switch boards (LCSB) is developed. An experiment is performed after the development to validate it. Finally, the controlling software of the switch unit is developed.

More attention must be paid to a principle existing in electronics that states that if a terminal is at a free-hanging and high impedance state, it can be easily interfered by a high frequency signal. It is an effective way to reduce the crosstalk by making the terminals connected with PZT sensors of all relays to be at the low impedance state when they do not work.

Switch unit design

Crosstalk phenomenon

In a general switch unit, PZT sensors are often connected with single pole double throw (SPDT) relays. If the relay is closed, the PZT sensor does not work; otherwise, the PZT sensor begins work as an actuator or a sensor. Figure 1 describes the terminals of a SPDT relay: normal open (NO), normal close (NC), and common (CM). When the relay is closed, CM is connected to NC; otherwise, it is connected to NO. When the power-enhanced excitation signal is input to CM and the relay is set to be closed, NO is at the state of free-hanging and high impedance. Because the power-enhanced excitation signal has high amplitude and frequency, a crosstalk signal happens at NO as shown in Fig. 2. This crosstalk signal can be amplied by the charge amplier with the response signal so that its amplitude can reach a very high level. This makes the small level response signal be submerged in it and difcult to process.

Fig. 1 Terminals of a relay on switch board

Fig. 2 Signal crosstalk phenomenon

Figure 3 shows the connection between the PZT sensor array and the SHM system. One PZT sensor is connected to two relays in the switch unit. The power amplier outputs the excitation signal to the switch unit and the gain programmable charge amplier (GPCA) receives the response signal. The digital I/O board controls the relays depending on the switch sequence and only two relays are opened at the same time. Depending on the principle mentioned above, an LCSB is developed rst. Two LCSBs are then adopted to constitute the switch unit. The designed schematic diagram of an LCSB is shown in Fig. 4. Because the digital I/O board produced by Adlink technology has 24 digital I/O channels and 12 V voltage power on its I/O port, the LCSB containing 24 relays is designed and powered by the digital I/O board. The digital signal generated by the digital I/O board is input to the control interface. Relay drivers drive the relay array depending on the received digital signal. The chip of the relay driver is ULN2003. One ULN2003 can support seven driving channels, thus four pieces of this chip are adopted. The relay array contains 24 SPDT relays whose types are TIANBO HJR-4102-L-12V. The excitation signal or the response signal is input or output through the In/Out terminal. PZT sensors are connected to the LCSB through the sensors interface. Considering the isolation between the excitation signal and the response signal, two LCSBs are adopted. One is connected to the power amplier for the excitation signal and the other is connected to the charge amplier for the response signal. Figure 5 shows the designed connection method that the LCSB is based on. The two poles of the PZT sensor are connected to CM. The NCs of all the relays are connected together with ground. In the initial condition, two poles of all the PZT sensors are connected with ground. Whether the PZT sensors are working or not, their two poles are not at the free-hanging and high impedance state; thus, there are no direct coupling channels between the excitation signal and the response signal. The level of the crosstalk is small. The developed switch unit is shown in Fig. 6. As shown in the front panel, 48 SSMB terminals constitute the sensors interface to connect with 24 PZT sensors. The other two SSMB terminals are used to connect with the system ground. Figure 6(b) shows the control interface,

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Fig. 3 Connection between PZT sensors and SHM system

Low crosstalk evaluation experiment

Fig. 4 Schematic diagram of an LCSB

Fig. 5

Connection method between PZT sensors and switch boards

and output and input terminals. Because the switch unit can control 24 PZT sensors, totally up to 552 actuator-sensor channels can be switched using this unit.

Another type of a connection method that does not consider the crosstalk is shown in Fig. 7. In this connection method, all the one poles of each sensor are connected to GND and their other poles are connected to NO. When the PZT sensor A does not work, one of its poles connected with NO is at the free-hanging and high impedance state, thus there exists a direct coupling channel: OutNO of relay 1NO of relay 3IN. When the excitation signal is input to this switch unit, a high crosstalk occurs. An experiment is performed to check the low crosstalk characteristics of the developed switch unit. Four PZT sensors are adopted to construct the sensor network. The specimen made of ber glass reinforced plastics laminate, and the placement of the PZT sensors are shown in Figs. 8 (a) and (b). Four actuator-sensor channels A-B, BD, D-E, and E-A are dened. The excitation signal used in the experiment is a ve-peak wave signal with 50 V amplitude and 50 KHz frequency. The sensitivity and gain of the charge amplier are set to the highest state. The SHM system switches the sensor network depending on the two methods mentioned above respectively. The acquired signal is shown in Fig. 9. Figure 9 (a), (c), (e), and (g) are the excitation signal and the response signal of the high crosstalk connection method and Fig. 9 (b), (d), (f), and (h) are the excitation signal and the response signal of the low crosstalk connection method. A crosstalk index is dened to describe the degree of severity of the crosstalk signal (the magnitude of excitation signal is considered to be the value before power enhancement): CI ACS =AES ,

Fig. 6 Switch Unit

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Fig. 7 Another type of connection method between PZT sensors and switch boards

where CI is the crosstalk index, ACS is the amplitude of the crosstalk signal, and AES is the amplitude of the excitation signal. Figure 9 and Table 1 show that the level of the crosstalk signal are much different before and after the consideration of the crosstalk and the developed switch unit has a good performance for low crosstalk charateristics.

Figure 10 shows the graphic user interface. This interface contains two main parts. One is the controlling part used to control the switch and the other is the monitoring part used to monitor the actual opening switch. If the controlling task fails, the switch error indicator shown at the bottom of the interface will be highlighted. This function can remind users that there is an error in the switch unit or that the controlling operation is illegal. One problem must be considered. As shown in Fig. 5, this connection poses a potential danger. If relays 1 and 3 are opened together, the excitation signal coming from the power amplier will input to the charge amplier through the coupling effect of PZT A. It may damage the charge amplier. Thus, in the software interface, the switches are operated in a mutually exclusive way. For example, as shown in Fig.10, if channel 0 in Actuator Channels is opened, channel 0 in Sensor Channels is colsed automatically and can not be opened by only users. Figure 11 shows the block diagram of the software. Its main program framework is the producer/consumer(event) pattern. This program framework can improve the running efciency of the software. In the producer loop, each opertion is considered as a producer and triggers a user event. After the event is triggered, this loop waits for the next user event again. Meanwhile, the triggered event is handled in a consumer loop. Thus, the two loops run in a parallel mode and no user event would be missed.

Software design 6 Conclusions

This paper chooses the LabVIEW software platform to achieve the controlling program of the switch unit. Considering the work state monitoring function and the controlling efciency, the software is designed as shown in Figs. 10 and 11.

This paper proposes the hardware and software design of the low crosstalk switch unit based on the crosstalk phenomenon analysis. An experiment is used to validate

Fig. 8 Table 1

Experimental specimen and arrangement of PZT sensors (a) Specimen and sensor network (b) Placement of PZT sensors

Crosstalk index of each channel

channel A-B B-D 1.443 0.032 D-E 1.209 0.067 E-A 1.100 0.037 0.994 0.123

connection method high crosstalk low crosstalk

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Fig. 9 Excitation signal and response signal acquired when using the two connection (a) A-B high crosstalk signal (b) A-B low crosstalk signal (c) B-D high crosstalk signal (d) B-D low crosstalk signal (e) D-E high crosstalk signal (f) D-E low crosstalk signal (g) E-A high crosstalk signal (h) E-A low crosstalk signal (solid line: excitation signal; dashed line: response signal)

Fig. 10

Graphic user interface of switch controlling software

the low crosstalk characteristics. This switch unit can connect with 24 PZT sensor, thus a total of 552 actuatorsensor channels can be switched. Although the switch unit has the advantage of low

crosstalk, another problem is introduced. Each PZT sensor needs two shield wires to connect with this unit. There are many wires that need to be used when using many PZT sensors in a sensor network. Thus the wires are very heavy

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Fig. 11 Block diagram of switch controlling software

and difcult to place. A type of a special smart layer of PZT sensors combined with the switch unit is proposed in applications.
Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Hi-tech Research and Development Program of China (No. 2007AA03Z117), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50830201) and the Graduate Education Innovation Project of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics of China (No. BCXJ0901).

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