<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Capacitance-to-Digital Converter (CDC) ICs available in the market use square wave excitation signals but a sinusoidal excitation is preferred in various applications, such as ice detection, liquid level measurement, humidity measurement, proximity sensing, etc. A dual slope technique based CDC that employs a sinusoidal excitation has been reported recently, but it requires a large number of excitation cycles, to complete an accurate conversion. This paper presents an improved CDC that employs a specially designed method to achieve high accuracy even when a much smaller number of excitation cycles, than the reported scheme, are employed to complete the conversion. A prototype CDC has been developed and tested. In comparison with an existing CDC, the new CDC achieved a substantial reduction (by a factor of 4000) in the number of excitation cycles during integration period, resulting in an improved update rate. Worst case error observed from the prototype CDC was less than 0.24%.</p></abstract>

Capacitance-to-Digital Converter (CDC) ICs available in the market use square wave excitation signals but a sinusoidal excitation is preferred in various applications, such as ice detection, liquid level measurement, humidity measurement, proximity sensing, etc. A dual slope technique based CDC that employs a sinusoidal excitation has been reported recently, but it requires a large number of excitation cycles, to complete an accurate conversion. This paper presents an improved CDC that employs a specially designed method to achieve high accuracy even when a much smaller number of excitation cycles, than the reported scheme, are employed to complete the conversion. A prototype CDC has been developed and tested. In comparison with an existing CDC, the new CDC achieved a substantial reduction (by a factor of 4000) in the number of excitation cycles during integration period, resulting in an improved update rate. Worst case error observed from the prototype CDC was less than 0.24%.

A Method for Improving Conversion Rate and Accuracy of a Capacitance-to-Digital Converter

International Journal on Smart Sensing and Intelligent Systems

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Capacitance-to-Digital Converter (CDC) ICs available in the market use square wave excitation signals but a sinusoidal excitation is preferred in various...

A Method for Improving Conversion Rate and Accuracy of a Capacitance-to-Digital Converter

Published Online: Feb 15, 2020

Page range: 1 - 6

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/ijssis-2019-088

Keywords
capacitance-to-digital converter, sinusoidal excitation, conversion rate, accuracy, capacitive sensor

© 2019 Authors., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

A Method for Improving Conversion Rate and Accuracy of a Capacitance-to-Digital Converter

Published Online: Feb 15, 2020

Page range: 1 - 6

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/ijssis-2019-088

Keywordscapacitance-to-digital converter, sinusoidal excitation, conversion rate, accuracy, capacitive sensor

© 2019 Authors., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
capacitance-to-digital converter, sinusoidal excitation, conversion rate, accuracy, capacitive sensor