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Abstract— This paper represents an enhancement in the performance of wireless monitoring of smart gas sensor. In this paper we are
proposing a novel design of a wireless monitoring gas sensor whose response has been drawn using latest available technologies. It consists of
an 8 bit micro controller with a 16 bit ADC on chip and a 433MHz transceiver. The sensor is an electrochemical gas sensor with control
circuits. Low power micro machined MOSFET Gas Sensor may be used in place of electrochemical gas sensor. This system consists of two
modules; one mobile station with the sensor and one base station for the communication with a PC. As the mobile station is battery powered, so
ultra-low power consumption is required. Therefore, the low power micro controller and the low power transceiver are used. In this paper we
are showing the complete circuits, its response and application. This concept can be expanded for multiple gas sensor placed at different places
and accessed by one center point which is far away from the site. Collecting all the data from sensors and providing it on the internet open for
all, if required.
Index Terms— wireless gas sensor, monitoring environment, control circuit, IEEE 1451.1, STIM, Ultra low power.
—————————— ——————————
1. INTRODUCTION
G AS sensor researchers find themselves looking to Gas monitoring points can easily be deployed in a
technological improvements by offering greater number of small tunnels, which solves various “dead
precision, enhanced productivity, and improved zone” of the current mine gas monitoring, it is very
interoperability to edge out the race, it is though useful to reduce or avoid the disasters of great
advancements such as the wireless gas sensor that the significance [5, 7].
industry is headed towards by combining wireless Wireless gas sensor can easily monitored with the
technology with their existing equipment by choosing current network connection of mine, it has good
from various protocols, such as peer to peer, blue tooth compatibility, it can easily constitute a mine gas
other internet specific protocol as shown in figure (1). monitored with the current network connection of
The wireless gas sensor is the next logical step in mine, it has good compatibility, it apply to different
technology as it reduces the cost of expensive wiring size of mine, As early as 1950, electro‐chemical sensors
and conduits, reducing the overall cost of installation of were used for oxygen (gas) monitoring. However, with
safety system [2]. Wireless gas detectors are becoming increasing concerns about personal safety, the demand
more and more popular in various oil well drilling for portable electro‐chemical sensors has dramatically
applications and coal mining system. In coal mine increased. Today, electro‐chemical sensors are
safety misadventure, gas explosion has been the commonly used in portable equipment to detect
greatest obstacle to safety [8]. In the colliery face different toxic gases. Electro‐chemical sensors operate
advances, the blasting was often used for excavation, by reacting with monitored gas and producing an
the sensor circuit placed in the heading face was easily electrical current that is linearly proportional to the gas
dismember, the normal use of the sensor was affected, concentration [3]. Older versions of electro‐chemical
thereby affecting the normal use of coal mine sensors were based on a two‐electrode configuration;
monitoring system. So, a wireless sensor was however, to achieve superior electro‐chemical stability,
researched, it often use of battery‐powered, can be three‐electrode systems are now used. The three
easily avoided the problem of sensor line blown off. electrodes are stacked parallel to each other, separated
by a thin layer of electrolyte that provides ionic
———————————————— electrical contact between the electrodes.
1. Deptt. Of ECE, AKG Engineering College, Ghaziabad (UP) Wireless sensor network is discussed by different
& PhD SCHOLOR (JMI) authors in many journals but the concept of MOSFET
2. Faculty of Engineering, Deptt. Of ECE, Jamia Millia Islamia,
NEW DELHI, INDIA based gas sensor response monitoring is still to come.
Users and manufactures would like one standard to
reduce manufacturing / Installation costs and for plug
& play capability. No single local network is likely to
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dominate in near future due to divergent needs [5]. The Oxygen, Ozone, Phosphine, Silane, Sulphur Dioxide,
Internet via Ethernet will likely be one of the dominate etc. Characteristics of electrochemical gas sensors are:
networks (but cost and complexity are problems). The Range: 2‐10 times permissible exposure limit
IEEE 1451 standard for sensor interfacing overcomes Life Expectancy: 12 to 24 months normally
many of the complications of multiple networks Temperature Range: –40oC to +45oC
wireless gas sensor circuits. Relative Humidity: 15‐95% noncondensing
Response Time T80: < 50 sec.
Long Term Drift: drift down 2% per month
3. CONTROL CIRCUIT
Electro‐chemical sensors require control circuitry to
operate. Figure 2 shows a simplified control circuit,
which is comprised of two amplifiers and one JFET
transistor. There are small variations in the
implementation of this circuit, but the function and the
outcome are the same. The P channel JFET is used as an
electronic switch to prevent the sensor from
polarization at no power. If the sensor is polarized, it
will take the sensor a long time to stabilize at
Figure 1. Block diagram of gas sensor monitoring system equilibrium. The JFET is only active when the power is
off and at this time it shorts the WE and RE to maintain
2. SENSOR FUNCTIONALITY the same potential.
When a gas comes in contact with the sensor, it passes
through a thin membrane barrier to reach the electrode
surface. The Working electrode (WE) is the first
electrode that comes in contact with the gas. The WE is
designed to optimize the electro‐chemical
oxidation/reduction of measured gas and to generate a
current flow that is proportional to the gas
concentration. The performance of the sensor
deteriorates over time due to the continuous electro‐
chemical reaction of the changes in WE potential
occurring on the electrode. To reduce deterioration Figure 2. Control circuit
while maintaining a constant sensitivity with a good
linearity, a Reference Electrode (RE) is placed close to The control circuit’s main purpose is
the WE. The reference electrode’s purpose is to anchor ‐To maintain a voltage between the RE and WE.
the working electrode at the correct potential. In order ‐To control the electro‐chemical reaction.
for the RE to maintain a constant potential, no current ‐To deliver an output signal proportional to the WE
should flow through it. current.
The third electrode, the Counter Electrode (CE), When the sensor is exposed to the target gas, such as
conducts current into or out of the sensor cell. For carbon monoxide, the reaction at the WE oxidizes the
example, When the WE oxidizes carbon monoxide; the carbon monoxide to become carbon dioxide, which diff
counter electrode reduces other molecules, such as uses out of the sensor. Hydrogen ions and electrons are
oxygen to generate current. This current exactly generated. The hydrogen ions migrate through the
balances the current generated at the WE. The ionic electrolyte towards the counter electrode. This process
current between the working electrodes and counter is leaves a negative charge deposited on the working
transported by the electrolyte [3]. It is sensitive for electrode. The electrons flow out from the working
gasses like Ammonia, Arsenic Hydride, Bromine, electrode through resistor R6 to the inverting input of
Carbon Monoxide, Chlorine, Chlorine Dioxide, the amplifier (U2). The amplifier is configured as a
Diborane, Fluorine, Germane, Hydrogen, Hydrogen trans‐impedance amplifier, which will convert the
Chloride, Hydrogen Cyanide, Hydrogen Fluoride, signal current from the WE into a voltage proportional
Hydrogen Sulphide, Nitric Oxide, Nitrogen Dioxide, to the applied gas concentration.
Output Voltage = Isensor (R4+ R6)/R4
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Case Study: Taking 20 ppm CO as a sample which XE8805 has two digital to analog converters (DAC) s: a
produces a typical value of current is approx. 980 nA, signal DAC able to pass a 4 KHz signal 10bits
which will give an output voltage of 9.8 mV. precision, and a bias DAC, able to output 10mA to
The hydrogen ions that have migrated toward the CE bias a sensor. The fully differential acquisition chain is
will lift the potential of the RE and the WE. This small formed a programmable gain (0.5to 1000), offset
rise in potential at the RE is measured by the control amplifier, programmable speed and resolution ADC
amplifier (U1). The amplifier will sink or source [4]. It can handle inputs with very low full scale signal
adequate current to the CE to balance the current and large offsets. Input selection is made from 1 of 44
required by the working electrode. differential pair or a1 of 7 single signals versus AC‐A
The performance of the control circuit is (0). Reference is chosen from the 2 differential
greatly dependent on the electrical parameters of the references.
amplifiers chosen. Designing control circuit using a
high‐bias current amplifier without precision
specifications will impact the sensor sensitivity and
increase sensor to sensor variation. After survey we
found that LMP7721 is best suitable for this particular
application because of ultralow input bias current
amplifier, which allows the electro‐chemical sensor to
detect low‐gas concentration with high accuracy. It is
designed with input bias guard driver circuitry which
dramatically reduces the input bias current over the
common mode voltage range to a typical of 3 Femto‐
ampere (fA) at room temperature (Guaranteed
specifications of ±20 fA at room temperature and ±900 Figure 3. Block diagram of distributed DSP with 8805
fA at 85°C). It is popularly known as lowest
temperature guaranteed bias current amplifier. Due to The gain of each amplifier is programmed
this properties of LMP7721 RE (U1) will maintain individually. Each amplifier is powered on and off on
constant potential by having less than 3 fA of bias command to minimize the total current requirement.
current [10]. In our case, the output of the sensor is connected to
In addition, gas sensors have large capacitance, so the first (AC_A0–AC_A1) input channel of ADC and
significant currents can flow for small potential shifts; all PGAs are enabled. The AD converter is used to
therefore, the offset voltage and off set drift over convert the differential input signal into a 16 bits 2’s
temperature are critical. A precision amplifier such as complement output format. The micro‐controller
the LMP7721 with a maximum input off set voltage of activates the gas sensor every five seconds. After the
180 μV, and temperature drift of 4 μV/°C will enable gas sensor has been stimulated, it measures the
more accurate current measurements. An amplifier relevant gas quantities. The sensor output is captured
with larger off ‐ set adds to the bias voltage of the by the micro‐controller’s ADC. Finally, the data is sent
sensor’s working electrode causing more error. to the base system via the XE1201A transceiver.
XE8805/05A is an ultra‐ low‐power micro‐controller
4. STIM-SMART TRANSDUCER unit, associated with a versatile ADC including
INTERFACE MODULE programmable offset and gain pre‐amplifier. This
STIM consist a microcontroller, analog to digital acquisition chain, the ADC also includes an analog
converter (ADC), digital to analog converter (DAC) multiplexer (AMUX) allowing selection of four
and Condition based maintenance system (CBMS) differential inputs channels or seven common
architecture. In this section we are implementing XE referenced signal paths. As the XE88LC05 has
8805 which contains the feature of ultralow power several sources of interrupts and events, it can
microcontroller with inbuilt Zooming ADC and DAC directly read the XE1201A data output and
as shown in Figure (4). The second part of this section synchronised clock.
is condition based maintenance which is required to Transceiver (300 ‐ 500 MHz) XE1201A is a half‐duplex
send data to the network. Figure (3) shows the block FSK transceiver for operation in the 433 MHz ISM
diagram of Distributed DSP system for CBMS band (optimised) and in the 300‐500 MHz band. The
architecture [2]. range of the XE1201A is between 200 and 300 meters.
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The modulation used is the Continuous Phase, 2
levels Frequency Shift Keying (CPFSK). The direct
conversion (zero‐IF) receiver architecture enables on‐
chip channel filtering. The XE1201A includes a bit
synchroniser so that glitch free data with
synchronised clock can directly be read by a low cost
/ low complexity micro‐controller.
(FC-2)
Figure 4. Block Diagram of Zooming ADC [4]
Wireless sensor research works in the area of MEMS as
sensor technology, DSP as node technology, cellular
network or multiple linked networks as wireless
network, wireless PDA or internet as remote access,
sensor data storage as a data management. The overall
concept of network section for this particular
application for monitoring gas sensor response is
(FC-3)
shown below as flow chart [9, 1]. The Flow chart is
separated in to three part showing condition 1&2 for
The RF unit at the base system is waiting for a
sending data in first part named as FC‐1; Condition 3 in
matching data frame. The arriving data will then be
2nd part named as FC‐2 and for receiving data with
sending to the PC com port via a UART connection.
condition 1 is named as FC‐3.
The PC application calculates and displays the data
using the following equation:
2
Signal = Offset + G1 * Binary Code + G2 * (Binary Code)
Binary Code is ADC output. The user can customise
the Offset, Gain1 (G1) and Gain2 (G2) parameters on
the PC.
5. RESULTS
The total power consumption can be reduced by using
this new setup with efficient reception on the internet.
The majority of gas sensors are three‐electrode electro‐
chemical cells that generate current that is linearly
proportional to the gas concentration. The generated
current is measured and converted to a voltage by the
control circuit. The control circuit also provides the
(FC-1) current to the counter electrode to balance the current
required by the working electrode. The electrical
specifications of the amplifiers used in the circuit are in
precision with ultralow bias current, such as National’s
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LMP7721 amplifier. Figure (5) shows the presence of
dichloromethane, chloroform and acetone respectively
(top to bottom waveform) on the internet.
Figure (6) shows the receiver output voltage of sensor
which was exposed to dichloromethane for 5 sec
intervals. Figure (7) shows a plot of resistance
variations of above mentioned test gases over a span of
time period. Finally Figure (8) shows a matrix of packet
transfer at different nodes.
Figure 8. Packet rate received with respect to nodes.
CONCLUSIONS
A low power wireless gas sensor based on ultra‐low
input bias current amplifier, low power XE 8805 using
concept of Zooming ADC, Distributed DSP has been
developed and the experimental results evaluated. The
gas detector data is finally transferred to the internet by
using IEEE 1451Protocol. The response of sensor on
Figure 5. sensor responses on internet
internet is satisfactory with ultra‐low power
consumption by the circuitry used at the transmitting
end. This sensor network has a big advantage than the
traditional gas sensors in terms of convenience and
service life. Wireless communications instead of the
original wire communication, to achieve the
monitoring of the gas, Wireless sensor structure is
simple, no moving parts, more stable performance,
even under the harsh working environment .
REFERENCES
[1]. F W.Weppner, “Solid state electrochemical gas sensors,” in
Proc. 2nd Int. Meeting Chem. Sens., Bordeaux, France, 1986,
Figure 6. Sensor output for 5 sec exposure of dichloromethane. pp. 59–68.
[2]. CC Enz, A El –Hoiydi, J D Deotignie, and V Peris, wiseNET:
An ultralow‐power wireless sensor network solution,
computer, Vol. 37, pp. 62‐70, 2004.
[3]. Jack Chou Electromagnetic sensor , chapter 2, pp. 27‐
35
[4]. XE8000 Wireless Gas Sensor, application note
AN8000.11,SEMTECH
[5]. WeiNing, B. Hong‐Sheng Yin, Xiu‐Rong Liu, “Design of Gas
Monitoring System of Coal Mine Based on Wireless Sensor
Networks”, Industry and Mine
automation,No.1,Jan.2010,pp.70‐72.
[6]. Pu‐Gen Lou, Xiao‐Yu Li, ZhangJing, “Design of
Underground Wireless Sensor Network Node for Real‐time
Monitoring and Its Implementation”, Industry and Mine
Figure 7. Response of dichloromethane, chloroform and acetone
automation, No.12, Dec.2010, pp.35‐37.
vapours.
[7]. Ju‐Duan Su, Chun‐Yan Gao, “The Research and Analysis of
Gas Monitoring System in Coal Mine”, Industrial Safety and
Environmental Protection, October2009, pp.30‐32.
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[8]. Xin‐Yue Zhong, Wan‐Cheng Xie, “Application of Wireless
Sensor Network in Coal Mine Environmental Monitoring”,
Coal Technology, Sep2009, pp.102‐103.
[9]. J. Seemann, F.R. Rapp, A. Zell, and G. Gauglitz, “Classical and
modern algorithms for the evaluation of data from sensor‐
arrays”, Frescnius Journal of Anal. Chemistry, N.359, 1997.
[10]. Data sheet of LMP7721Femoampere input bias current
precision amplifier, National Semiconductor.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dr. Syed A Imam was born in Bihar,
India on Jan-4, 1961. He received the M.
Sc. Engg degree from AMU, Aligarh
and PhD. degree in Electronics &
Comm. Engg from Jamia Millia Islamia
Central University, New Delhi, in 1998,
and 2008, respectively.
Since 1990, he has been part of Jamia
Millia Islamia University,
Where he is Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronics and
Communication Engineering. His current research interests are in the
field of sensing technologies, electronic and biosensors, signal
processing and digital circuits.