Design and development of an electronic interface circuit for piezoelectric sensors applied to impact detection

Abstract

Impact detection is a very important Technology in today’s industry and science. It has many applications, from testing building structures to detecting the coin impact in an automatic distribution machine. The aim of this project is to design a low cost and low power consumption electronic circuit to condition the signal from different piezoelectric sensors. To begin, we made a study of piezoelectric technology, which is the most used in impact detection. We have also studied the mathematical model of an impact. Once we know clearly what we want to measure, we decided to use piezoelectric buzzers, instead of commercial sensors, because they have a similar behavior but a lower cost. To continue, we have studied the buzzer features, to design the circuit. After that, we have designed and simulated the sensor signal conditioning circuit. Once we have the circuit design, we have mounted it using commercial components, and we have tested it with a couple of experiments. Those experiments served as feedback to adjust the circuit parameters and to learn concepts about impact detection. To carry on with this project work, the whole system could be designed to be portable, powered with batteries and with SMD components in order to make it smaller.