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- Title
Ad-hoc Network of Smart Sensors for Mechanical Load Measurement.
- Authors
Vieira, Manuel A.; Coelho, João P.; Ribeiro, João C.
- Abstract
Strain gauges load cells are transducers devices capable of converting changes in applied mechanical load into an electrical analog signal. Those devices have a large spectrum of applications ranging from domestic to industrial or even medical appliances just to name a few. In this work, they are used in the electronic instrumentation of a force platform that will be used to carry out the analysis and characterization of human biomechanical walking. In this platform, four load cells are installed, each one capable of measuring forces along two different axis. A total of eight strain-gauges per load cell are employed. Hence, analog signal transmission, besides requiring a large number of connection wires, is prone to interference and noise. Moreover, with this solution, scalability requires severe changes in the connection topology. In order to circumvent those problems, an alternative in-situ signal conditioning and digital data transmission system was devised. This approach, as far as investigated, presents an innovative solution to signal conditioning and data transmission for load-cells. In particular, the presented solution allows the creation of an ad-hoc network of load cells, using the I2C protocol with a master interface that allows the users to interact and change the parameters of each load cell. This instrumentation structure has been successfully tested and the obtained results are documented in this article.
- Subjects
AD hoc computer networks; INTELLIGENT sensors; ELECTRICAL load; STRAIN gages; TRANSDUCERS; ANALOG function generators
- Publication
Carpathian Journal of Electronic & Computer Engineering, 2016, Vol 9, Issue 1, p17
- ISSN
1844-9689
- Publication type
Article