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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
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
Description
Keywords
Force platform I²C bus Load cell Smart sensors Strain gauge LabVIEW
Citation
Vieira, Manuel; Coelho, J.P.; Ribeiro, J.E. (2016). Ad-hoc network of smart sensors for mechanical load measurement. Carpatian Journal of electronic and Computer Engineering. ISSN 1844 – 9689. 9:1, p. 17-21