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Monitoring Systems (AutoRecovered)

Monitoring systems utilize sensors to collect environmental data, while control systems actively adjust system states using actuators, both relying on microcontrollers. Examples include heart rate monitors and automatic blood glucose control systems, which enhance health tracking and management. The document also discusses various sensor types, actuators, and concepts like analogue-to-digital conversion and bit manipulation in control systems.

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11 views9 pages

Monitoring Systems (AutoRecovered)

Monitoring systems utilize sensors to collect environmental data, while control systems actively adjust system states using actuators, both relying on microcontrollers. Examples include heart rate monitors and automatic blood glucose control systems, which enhance health tracking and management. The document also discusses various sensor types, actuators, and concepts like analogue-to-digital conversion and bit manipulation in control systems.

Uploaded by

rutendomujati
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Monitoring Systems

Monitoring systems seek to observe and record data about about an environment
through the use of sensors, e.g. recording the temperature of a greenhouse..

Control systems seek to actively maintain or change the state of an system through the
use of actuators. The control system is continually monitoring the inputs and adjusting
the outputs from actuators through a feedback loop.

At the heart of both processes is a microcontroller.

Example 1 : Heart Rate Monitoring system

Heart rate monitor systems are commonly used both in hospitals and by individuals who
want to track their health.

The systems usually give visual output on the display and often data is logged in
persistent file storage for future analysis.

Wrist mounted heart rate monitor


Example 2 : Automatic Blood Glucose Control system

In the past patients would have to monitor their blood glucose levels manually and give
themselves an insulin injection as necessary. Advances in technology mean that
glucose can now be controlled automatically through the use of a closed loop control
system.

Without an automatic blood sugar controller patients have to take a blood sample manually
Sensors

Analogue Sensors

The most basic sensors are analogue sensors. These a usually resistance varying
components that are connected directly to the GPIO pins of a microcontroller, combined
with a Pull Up / Pull Down resistor. The Microcontroller if then responsible converting
the signal to digital format via the on-board ADC chip.

Light dependant resister thermistor temp sensor

Digital Sensors

More complex sensors contain the ADC chip on the sensor board itself and send data
digitally via a serial connection.

Ultra sonic distance accelerometer


Infrared Sensor (IR Sensor)
IR Sensors or Infrared Sensor are light based sensor that are used in
various applications like Proximity and Object Detection. IR Sensors are
used as p There are two types of Infrared or IR Sensors: Transmissive
Type and Reflective Type. In Transmissive Type IR Sensor, the IR
Transmitter (usually an IR LED) and the IR Detector (usually a Photo
Diode) are positioned facing each other so that when an object passes
between them, the sensor detects the object.

The other type of IR Sensor is a Reflective Type IR Sensor. In this, the


transmitter and the detector are positioned adjacent to each other
facing the object. When an object comes in front of the sensor, the
infrared light from the IR Transmitter is reflected from the object and is
detected by the IR Receiver and thus the sensor detects the object.

Different applications where IR Sensor is implemented are Mobile


Phones, Robots, Industrial assembly, automobiles etc.

A small project, where IR Sensors are used to turn on street lights:


STREET LIGHTS USING IR SENSORS.

proximity sensors in almost all mobile phones.

Pressure, light, ultra sonic ,microphone, alcohol ,touch, thermal,


humidity ,weight smoke
Actuators

Actuators are a component of a system that converts a control signal into some kind of
mechanic motion.

They can:

 operate values

 drive motors / conveyor belts

 Switch switches

Electrical actuator controlling water value


Analogue to Digital Convertor

Data needs to be converted from analogue format (e.g. the voltage running through a
temperature sensor circuit) into a digital value the the computer can read. This is the job
of the analogue to digital convertor (ADC). Some temperature sensors have an ADC
chip built into the device and then the digital data is sent onto the microcontroller using
a serial connection(such as USB). On other devices (for example when you connect a
light dependent resistor to the GPIO pins of a microcontroller then the ADC on the
controller itself handles the conversion.

Digital to Analogue Convertor

When sending the control signal to the actuator the signal may need to be converted to
analogue format before or after the transfer. This is the just of the digital to analogue
converter.

For example when turning on a electrical motor actuator, then the signal needs to be
converted from a number stored in binary to a voltage supplied to circuit.

Bit Manipulation in control systems

Simple control systems often have very little in the way of processing power and only a
few bytes of memory. In order to use memory efficiently each bit within a byte can be
used to store Boolean data about the state of a system, such as whether a sensor has
been triggered.
Simple binary manipulation together with bit-masking can allow individual bits to be
read, set or toggled. For more information take a look at the bit-masking page.

Bit Masking Operations

When computers were first invented processing power was very limited so any tricks
that could be used to speed up processing were incredibly useful and as such bit
masking was introduced.

Bit Masking allows the checking, setting and resetting individual bits within a binary
without having to loop through or involve complicate logic. It could all be achieved at the
logic circuit level which meant that the operations were incredibly efficient.

Computers are far more powerful today, however the amount of data our programs
process has also increased exponentially, and so in certain circumstances these ‘binary
tricks’ can still come in credibly handy. They are also useful in low level control
applications where simple systems use individual bits as flags. These systems are often
battery/solar power systems so it is also useful to reduce processing as much as
possible. Bit masking is also still widely used in networking when using subnet masks.

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