Key Sensor Technology Components: Hardware and Software Overview

Sensors measure a variety of chemical, biological, and physical quantities using a wide range of sensing techniques as outlined in the previous chapter. The action of sensing creates an output signal, via a transduction process, that must be processed and transmitted in some manner in order for a person or another device to do something useful with it. Sensors that have the capability to acquire, process, and output measurements over a data bus in a single package are referred to as smart sensors. The capabilities of these smart sensors can be further augmented with features, such as radio communications, sampling, remote manageability, and enclosures, to deliver smart sensor systems. The combination of hardware and software enables signal conditioning, data processing, transmission, storage, and display of the sensor measurement. In this chapter, we will examine the key hardware and software features that are important in the design of sensors and sensor systems.