LED PEDD Discharge Photometry: Effects of Software Driven Measurements for Sensing Applications

Publication Name

Sensors

Abstract

This work explores the effects of embedded software-driven measurements on a sensory target when using a LED as a photodetector. Water turbidity is used as the sensory target in this study to explore these effects using a practical and important water quality parameter. Impacts on turbidity measurements are examined by adopting the Paired Emitter Detector Diode (PEDD) capacitive discharge technique and comparing common embedded software/firmware implementations. The findings show that the chosen software method can (a) affect the detection performance by up to 67%, (b) result in a variable sampling frequency/period, and (c) lead to an disagreement of the photo capacitance by up to 23%. Optimized code is offered to correct for these issues and its effectiveness is shown through comparative analyses, with the disagreement reduced significantly from 23% to 0.18%. Overall, this work demonstrates that the embedded software is a key and critical factor for PEDD capacitive discharge measurements and must be considered carefully for future measurements in sensor related studies.

Open Access Status

This publication may be available as open access

Volume

22

Issue

4

Article Number

1526

Funding Number

CE140100012

Funding Sponsor

Australian Research Council

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22041526