Design and Evaluation of a Multidirectional Thermal Flow Sensor on Flexible Substrate

The development and the corresponding evaluation of a multidirectional thermal flow sensor are presented in this work. The sensor was fabricated on a flexible substrate, allowing for new applications, since it provides the possibility of installation in nonplanar surfaces such as pipelines. Furthermore, the sensing elements are not in direct contact with the fluid, which increases the device reliability, extends its application range, and allows the noncontact monitoring of fluids. This was achieved by utilizing the substrate as a protective layer between the sensing elements and the fluid under measurement. The operation principle is based on the determination of the flow-induced temperature profile variations. A dedicated experimental setup was designed and used for the device evaluation. Both flow velocity value and direction were successfully extracted, while the results were consistent with the predicted theoretical values. A single-layer back propagation neural network that correlates the sensors’ readouts to the angle of rotation was implemented, which leads to a mean absolute direction estimation error in the order of 2.7 degrees independent to the training procedure datasets.

[1]  Milad Yarali,et al.  Microfabrication of a variable range and multi-directionally sensitive thermal flow sensor , 2014 .

[2]  Johan H. Huijsing,et al.  Integrated silicon flow-direction sensor , 1989 .

[3]  Okan K. Ersoy,et al.  Implementation of back-propagation neural networks with MatLab , 1992 .

[4]  J. H. Huijsing,et al.  Monolithic integrated direction-sensitive flow sensor , 1982, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[5]  Pei Chen,et al.  A MEMS flow velocity sensor with low kinetic energy dissipation rate , 2017 .

[6]  Q. Gallas,et al.  Wall Shear Stress Calorimetric Micro-Sensor Designed for Flow Separation Detection and Active Flow Control , 2017 .

[7]  Nam-Trung Nguyen,et al.  A novel wind sensor concept based on thermal image measurement using a temperature sensor array , 2004 .

[8]  Thilo Sauter,et al.  Development of an air flow sensor for heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems based on printed circuit board technology , 2016 .

[9]  S. Krishnamurthy,et al.  Noninvasive measurement of cerebrospinal fluid flow using an ultrasonic transit time flow sensor: a preliminary study. , 2016, Journal of neurosurgery. Pediatrics.

[10]  Kazuo Sato,et al.  Flexible flow sensor for large-scale air-conditioning network systems , 2012 .

[11]  Henry Baltes,et al.  Two-dimensional integrated gas flow sensors by CMOS IC technology , 1995 .

[12]  Rong Zhu,et al.  A Compact Flexible Thermal Flow Sensor for Detecting Two-Dimensional Flow Vector , 2015, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[13]  Massimo Piotto,et al.  Determination of the Wind Speed and Direction by Means of Fluidic-Domain Signal Processing , 2018, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[15]  Kofi A. A. Makinwa,et al.  A smart wind sensor using thermal sigma-delta modulation techniques , 2002 .

[16]  S. Choa,et al.  Reliability of MEMS packaging: vacuum maintenance and packaging induced stress , 2005 .

[17]  Neveen Hamza,et al.  Effect of roof shape, wind direction, building height and urban configuration on the energy yield and positioning of roof mounted wind turbines , 2013 .

[18]  Igor Paprotny,et al.  MEMS capacitive flow sensor for natural gas pipelines , 2015 .

[19]  Matteo Corno,et al.  Data-Driven Online Speed Optimization in Autonomous Sailboats , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.

[21]  K. Sreenivasan,et al.  Statistics of wind direction and its increments , 2000 .

[22]  Rong Zhu,et al.  A Two-Dimensional Flow Sensor with Integrated Micro Thermal Sensing Elements and a Back Propagation Neural Network , 2013, Sensors.

[23]  Sekwang Park,et al.  Design and fabrication of a flow sensor detecting flow direction and velocity , 2003, TRANSDUCERS '03. 12th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems. Digest of Technical Papers (Cat. No.03TH8664).

[24]  J.R. Platt.  Wind detection in a microcosm: ship/aircraft environment sensors , 1997, Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE National Radar Conference.

[25]  Mitsuhiro Shikida,et al.  Development of Small-Footprint Thermal Sensor Detecting Airflow at Mouth in Baby , 2017 .

[26]  Gerald Urban,et al.  A 2D thermal flow sensor with sub-mW power consumption , 2010 .

[27]  Emilio Gil,et al.  Influence of wind velocity and wind direction on measurements of spray drift potential of boom sprayers using drift test bench , 2015 .

[28]  M. Shikida,et al.  Micromachined Tube Type Thermal Flow Sensor for Adult-Sized Tracheal Intubation Tube , 2017 .

[29]  Zhong Lin Wang,et al.  Self-Powered Wind Sensor System for Detecting Wind Speed and Direction Based on a Triboelectric Nanogenerator. , 2018, ACS nano.

[30]  Eric Garnier,et al.  High temperature gradient calorimetric wall shear stress micro-sensor for flow separation detection , 2017 .

[31]  Thor I. Fossen,et al.  On estimation of wind velocity, angle-of-attack and sideslip angle of small UAVs using standard sensors , 2015, 2015 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS).

[32]  D. Jin,et al.  MEMS piezoresistive flow sensors for sleep apnea therapy , 2018, Sensors and Actuators A: Physical.

[33]  F. Kohl,et al.  Highly Sensitive Sensor for Flow Velocity and Flow Direction Measurement , 2006, 2006 5th IEEE Conference on Sensors.

[34]  P. Bruschi,et al.  A Low-Power 2-D Wind Sensor Based on Integrated Flow Meters , 2009, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[35]  Ming Qin,et al.  Temperature Effects on the Wind Direction Measurement of 2D Solid Thermal Wind Sensors , 2015, Sensors.

[36]  Ruiyi Que,et al.  Flexible micro flow sensor for micro aerial vehicles , 2017, Frontiers of Mechanical Engineering.

[37]  Kyu-Sik Shin,et al.  Application of Surface Protective Coating to Enhance Environment-Withstanding Property of the MEMS 2D Wind Direction and Wind Speed Sensor , 2017, Sensors.