Product category:
Monitoring and sensor equipment and systems
News Release from: BEI Technologies | Subject: OmniSens pressure sensors
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 26 November 2002
Pressure sensing benefits from
digitisation
A new electronics interface technology provides digital accuracy and flexibility to pressure sensing instrumentation for several industrial applications.
BEI Edcliff announces the release of OmniSens a new electronics interface technology that provides digital accuracy and flexibility to pressure sensing instrumentation OmniSens incorporates a microcontroller and proprietary firmware to give unprecedented reliability, flexibility and value
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 30 Jul 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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Accuracy - the OmniSens pressure electronics technology employs specialised algorithms to compensate for the mechanical non-linearity and thermal sensitivity of the pressure die.
This method of software compensation results in a significant improvement in accuracy and performance over less sophisticated products that utilise look-up tables to condition signal output.
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This compensation methodology enables products incorporating OmniSens to achieve 0.25% TEB (Total Error Band) accuracies on standard configurations and 0.1% TEB accuracies on non-standard requests.
Reliability - a "Re-zero on Command" function provides new flexibility in controlling zero-point drift.
Zero point drift can represent a significant issue in maintaining equipment calibration.
OmniSens Re-zero on Command, provides the ability to rescale zero at start-up or during predetermined maintenance intervals.
This results in reduced maintenance costs, increased equipment uptime, and higher sensor reliability.
Flexibility - OmniSens technology is easily packaged into standard, industrial, aviation and military pressure sensor packages making retrofit and replacement of other sensors simple.
The technology offers additional functions to control the characteristics of the sensor.
These advanced functions include the ability to "Re-Span" the sensor either manually with the push of a button or electronically via firmware interface.
This allows the sensors Full Span Output (FSO) to be adjusted to non-standard pressure ranges.
Similarly the "Reconfigure Output on Command" function enables users to reconfigure or scale the output signal of the sensor into a variety of units of measure.
Additionally media temperature output is available on request.
Unprecedented value - OmniSens products utilise a direct digital output which allows OEMs to eliminate the use of analogue to digital converters and comparators in control circuitry, reducing component count, design costs, equipment complexity and eliminating signal resolution loss due to conversion.
All of these benefits are provided for relatively the same cost of traditional analogue pressure sensors.
Models equipped with OmniSens technology can provide both digital and analogue signal outputs.
Digital outputs are available in TTL, RS232 and RS485 formats.
The digital output has standard UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) duplex hardware features and provides data flow in digital framed format.
The Digital data flow includes: * Compensated pressure value.
* Compensated ambient temperature value.
* Transducer's identity and specification values.
The analogue output of the OmniSens is synthesised by the microprocessor using the same compensation algorithm as the digital output to provide a highly accurate signal.
Analogue outputs include industry standard 4-20mA and 1-5V output signal types.
In addition, the OmniSens product can be configured to provide custom analogue outputs to a customer's specification.
OmniSens' technology is available in many different package configurations for applications in the following markets; Medical Equipment, Process Equipment, Instrumentation, Waste Handling, Pulp and Paper, Refrigeration and HVAC.
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