• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.317-322
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• 2010

This paper reports the fabrication and characterization of surface micromachined poly 3C-SiC capacitive pressure sensors on silicon wafer operable in touch mode and normal mode for high temperature applications. FEM(finite elements method) simulation has been performed to verify the analytical mode. The sensing capacitor of the capacitive pressure sensor is composed of the upper metal and the poly 3C-SiC layer. Measurements have been performed in a temperature range from $25^{\circ}C$ to $500^{\circ}C$. Fabrication process of designed poly 3C-SiC touch mode capacitive pressure sensor was optimized and would be applicable to capacitive pressure sensors that are required high precision and sensitivity at high pressure and temperature.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.31-32
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• 2006

A signal conditioning circuit for capacitive sensors was developed using a commercial single chip solution. Since capacitive displacement sensors can achieve high resolution and linearity, they have been widely used as precision sensors within the range of several hundred micrometers. However, they inherently have a limitation in low frequency range and some nonlinearity characteristics and so a specially designed signal conditioning circuit is needed to handle these properties. Up to now, several companies already have succeeded in the development of the capacitive sensors system and they are commercially available in the market. In this research, to construct the signal processing circuits more easily and simply, we used a universal LVDT signal conditioner (AD698). Since the AD698 provides one chip solution for a basic signal processing including modulation and demodulation using various internal components, we can build the processing circuits successfully with minimal additional circuits: a compensation circuits for the drift caused by the bias current of OP amplifiers and a fine adjustment circuit for the elimination of nonlinearity. The signal processing circuits shows nonlinearity less than 0.05% in the comparison with a laser interferometer.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.265-271
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• 2005

In this study, a variable capacitive pressure sensor is fabricated for TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System). This study is for developing sensors which consecutively measure the tire pressure given as 30 psi from the industrial standard. For improving non-linearity of the prior capacitive pressure sensors, it is suggested that touch mode capacitive pressure sensor be applied. In addition, initial capacitance is designed as small as possible for the conformity to the wireless sensor. ANSYS, commercial FEA package, is used for designing and simulating the sensor. The device is progressed by MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) fabrication and packaged with PDMS. The result is obtained sensitivity, 1 pF/psi, through a pressure test. The simulation result is discrepant from experiment one. Wafer's uniformity is presumed as the main reason of discrepancy.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.509-512
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• 2015

In this paper, several capacitive sensors for measuring the position of the piston in hydraulic cylinder was studied and designed. The inductive LVDT sensor has been widely used to measure the position of the piston because of its high accuracy, but this type of sensor is very expensive and has difficulty in use because of its complexity. To overcome these disadvantages, we studied the optimized non-contact capacitive sensors and designed several capacitive sensors for accurate measuring the location of piston in hydraulic cylinder. The proposed capacitive sensor has the possibility of practical use for hydraulic cylinder through experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.60-67
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• 2007

A signal conditioning circuit for capacitive displacement sensors was developed using a high frequency modulation/demodulation method, and its performance was evaluated. Since capacitive displacement sensors can achieve high resolution and linearity, they have been widely used as precision sensors within the range of several hundred micrometers. However, they inherently have a limitation in low frequency range and some nonlinearity characteristics and so a specially designed signal conditioning circuit is needed to handle these properties. The developed signal processing circuit consists of three parts: linearization, modulation/demodulation, and nonlinearity compensation. Each part was constructed discretely using several IC chips and passive elements. An evaluation system for precision displacement sensors was developed using a laser interferometer, a precision stage, and a PID position controller. The signal processing circuit was tested using the evaluation system in the respect of resolution, repeatability, linearity, and so on. From the experimental results, we know that a highly linear voltage output can be obtained successfully, which is proportional to displacement and the nonlinearity of output is less than 0.02% of full range. However, in the future, further investigation is required to reduce noise level and phase delay due to a low-pass filter. The evaluation system also can be applied effectively to calibration and evaluation of precision sensors and stages.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.483-486
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• 2003

This paper presents a small capacitance measuring circuit for capacitive sensors. The proposed circuit consists of sinewave generator, detector and demodulator. Results of experiments are shown that the circuit can be able to measure small capacitance exiting in a capacitive sensor filled with a vegetable oil. The sensitivity of the circuit is from 0.4V/pF to 4V/pF and the resolution is from 0.0025 pF to 0.00025 pF.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.24-28
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• 2014

A lock-in amplifier was proposed for capacitive sensor applications. This amplifier was based on a general-purpose microcontroller and had only a charge amplifier as analog circuits. All the other functions of lock-in amplifier except for the charge amplifier were implemented with firmware and the internal resources of the microcontroller. A rectangular signal, generated by the microcontroller, was used in a sensor-driving signal instead of a conventional sinusoidal signal. This makes it possible that the phase comparison circuit in the lockin amplifier is made with analog-to-digital converter, a timer and an interrupt controller. Using the oversampling method and the rectangular driving signal, we can make it easy to implement the peak detection function with software and sample the peak-to-peak signal at charge amplifier output. A charge amplifier was proposed to cancel out the base capacitance existing in capacitive sensors structurally. The experimental results show that the lock-in amplifier operating in the supply voltage of 3.0 V cancels out the base capacitance and has good linearity.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.2082-2088
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• 1995

In this paper, we designed and fabricated the magnetic bearings and built-in type cylindrical capacitive transducers for improving the vibration characteristics of rotating shaft. The eddy current and magnetic field from the electromagnet of the bearing don't affect the measuring signal of the capacitive type transducers so that it is possible to locate the capacitive sensor plates around the magnetic bearing poles and can improve the spillover problem which is induced by the noncollocation of the sensors and actuators. According to the sensitivity calibration schemes using a X-Y table, the cylindrical capacitive transducers have a good linearities in the .+-.70.mu.m range from the geometric center of the sensor plates. The measured results also show high displacement sensitivities of the sensors. According to the performance test of the magnetic bearing which is controlled by the analog PD controllers, we found that the built-in capacitive transducer system successfully measures the journal displacement in the magnetic field and therefore the magnetic bearing system supports the rotating shaft up to 12,000 rpm.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.271-277
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• 2010

Intravenous(IV) drip therapy is extensively used for all kinds of treatments. It works by delivering medicine directly into the vein. When the medicine has been fully dispensed, a dangerous situation occurs since air in the IV drip bag could enter the patient's vein, which is hazardous to the patient’s safety. In this paper, using capacitive sensors to detect the residual quantity of a plastic IV drip pack is proposed. A simulation model of this technology was shown by a finite elements analysis(FEA) program to find out its feasibility and analyze the proper geometrical dimension of a capacitive sensor. According to the FEA simulation, 3 kinds of capacitive sensors were attached to the bottom surface of the plastic IV drip bag to detect the residual quantity in the experiment. Experimental data showed an agreement with the FEA simulation model estimation and confirmed that the sensor works.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.1835-1841
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• 2006

Demand of enhanced bilge separation sensor system has been recently increased due to the severe regulation reinforcement of MEPC(Marine Environment Production Committee). Up to date bilge separation sensor has to be extremely accurate and highly reliable. To design and build such a bilge separator. a precise oily water separation level sensor that distinguishes oil from water is critical. Three dimensional simulations have been carried out to figure out the characteristics of capacitive level sensors, which grounds the finding of the parameters required to design the sensors. The parasitic capacitance problem which is inherent to capacitive level sensors has been taken care of. This paper concludes with the future research direction that can be pursued with the newly defined parameters of the capacitive level sensors.