227 research outputs found
Power meter for Highly-Distorted Three-Phase Systems
No full textThis paper describes a low-cost, three-phase power meter, which is based on a fast, specially designed acquisition board coupled to a PC via the PC parallel/printer port or by means of an AT card. The power associated with the fundamental and first harmonics is computed by software that operates in the time domain and employs a sample-weighting procedure that makes the uncertainty related to the asynchronous sampling negligible. The low-cost acquisition board features two 8-bit 1 MHz converters and a local RAM, which decouples the PC clock from the measurement requirements. Hall effect transducers are used for the current channels and fast differential amplifiers for the voltage channels. The fast sampling frequency allows simple antialiasing filters to be employed. Digital filtering is used to reduce the sample number while increasing the resolution. The power uncertainty provided by this arrangement is less then 0.1 % with 2.5 measurements per second when a low-cost 486DX33-based PC is use
Low-Cost Laser-Based Localization System for Agricultural Machines
No full textThis paper describes the design and test of a low-cost localization system for agricultural applications, which determines a tractor position in fields up to 0.5 km with an uncertainty of about 1 m. The proposed system employs a standard unmodified laser head, which is commonly used for field leveling, plus a reference ground-fixed laser receiver and requires neither laser modulation nor expensive time-of-flight measurements of light beam
Noninvasive Solution for Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy on Metallic Works of Art
No full textMetallic works of art of cultural relevance are continuously subjected to corrosion as the environment becomes increasingly polluted. A fast and simple method to in situ assess the conservation conditions is therefore required. This paper describes the development and performance of dry and gel-based electrodes which can be used to assess the surface conservation state without the need to move the artifacts and which do not cause any damage to them. The electrodes can be used with a portable electrochemical impedance spectroscopy system, without employing electrochemical cells. The proposed solution does not provide all the information that one can obtain using an electrochemical cell, but it can discriminate between protective coatings. It can be used to assess the protective capability of corrosion product layers and natural patinas, and it can therefore enable a noninvasive routine surface assessment to be conducted that could be extremely useful for people working in the field of conservation of cultural heritag
A Traveling Standard for the Calibration of Data Acquisition Boards
No full textThe large use of measurement systems based on data acquisition boards makes the traceability-chain assurance a tricky problem due to the difficulty in consistently calibrating such boards. In this paper, the authors describe a traveling standard which can be used for the calibration of many commercially available acquisition boards. By employing such a traveling standard, the calibration procedure can be remotely exercised by a calibration laboratory through the personal computer which hosts the board that has to be calibrated. In such a way, the calibration results refer to environmental, software, and hardware conditions that exactly match the board-operating conditions. Furthermore, the board unavailability time is drastically reduced, with a consequent economic advantage for the board owner. The traveling standard is based on a microcontroller which is responsible for the communication with the PC that hosts the board and for the board-stimulus generation, and on a digital multimeter, which acts as a reference standard
Exposure-Tolerant Imaging Solution forCultural Heritage Monitoring
No full textThis paper describes a simple and cheap solution specifically designed for monitoring the degradation of thin coatings employed for metal protection. The proposed solution employs a commercial photocamera and a frequency-domain-based approach that is capable of highlighting the surface uniformity changes due to initial corrosion. Even though the proposed solution is specifically designed to monitor the long-time performance of protective coatings employed for the restoration of silver artifacts, it can be successfully used also for assessing the conservation state of other ancient metallic works of art. The proposed solution is made tolerant to exposure changes by using a procedure for sensor nonlinearity identification and correction, does not require a precise lighting control, and employs only free open-source software, so that its overall cost is very low and can be used also by not specifically trained operator
Automatic compensation system for impedance measurement
No full textThis paper deals with the realization of the four-pair terminal definition of impedance standards. A simple, though reliable, system is described that allows an automatic compensation of the voltage at the low potential port of impedance standards to be obtained. Such a system employs a commercial data acquisition board and a signal generator with adjustable-phase capability, which acts as the phase reference for the generator that feeds the impedance standard. A standard PC controls the whole system and implements the demodulation and the control algorithms. Preliminary tests have been performed in the frequency range of 50 Hz to 20 kHz with different kinds of impedance standards (resistive, inductive and capacitive), obtaining a residual voltage at the low potential port of less than 5 μV
Evaluation of Radiation Thermal Resistances in Industrial Motors
No full textThis paper deals with the role of the radiation thermal resistances in industrial motors and describes a test set useful for the resistance evaluation. The test set is based on a vacuum chamber and on a numerical acquisition system, and the resistances are obtained by monitoring motor temperatures during a heating test. An analytical model that describes how the radiation resistance depends on the motor temperature is also provided. Experimental results obtained on a totally enclosed fan-cooled 150-W induction motor are shown and discussed
A Wireless Sensor Network for Cold-Chain Monitoring
No full textThis paper deals with a wireless sensor network that was specifically designed to monitor temperature-sensitive products during their distribution with the aim of conforming to the cold-chain assurance requirements. The measurement problems and the constraints that have been encountered in this application are initially highlighted, and then, an architecture that takes such problems into account is proposed. The proposed architecture is based on specifically designed measuring nodes that are inserted into the products to identify their behavior under real operating conditions, e.g., during a typical distribution. Such product nodes communicate through a wireless channel with a base station, which collects and processes the data sent by all the nodes. A peculiarity of the product nodes is the low cost, which allows the information on the cold-chain integrity to be provided to the final customer. The results that refer to the functional tests of the proposed system and to the experimental tests performed on a refrigerated vehicle during a distribution are reporte
Les origines du mot Paradisus-Parvis
No full textPicard Jean-Charles. Les origines du mot Paradisus-Parvis. In: Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Moyen-Age, Temps modernes, tome 83, n°2. 1971. pp. 159-186
Niobium Pentaoxide Thin-Film Gas Sensor for Portable Acetone Sensing
No full textAcetone gas sensing finds application in several fields such as biomedical applications, food industry, chemical manufacturing and environmental monitoring. Often, such applications require good sensing performance and portability of the sensing devices. This paper proposes a conductometric gas sensor based on a thin-film of Nb2O5 able to detect acetone at the sub-ppm level with good selectivity and repeatability. The quite small dimensions and the low power consumption make the proposed sensor suitable for portable applications
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