Applied Engineering Construction Project

Lab Report (week 2)

Introduction to Sensors

Name: Zhou Weihua

ID: 20011653

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Content

........................................................................... 1
Content ........................................................... 2
1.Introduction ............................................... 1
2.Description of hardware and
software design............................................ 1
3.Result, analysis and discussion ......... 3
4.Conclusion .................................................. 7
5.Reference ................................................... 8
6.Appendix A................................................. 9
7.Appendix B................................................. 9
1.Introduction

The device which can detect and responds to external input is

called sensor. There is a variety form of input signals, such as
light, motion, heat, and pressure. The output of sensor usually is
voltage or current signal that converted by sensor which is
generally considered to be the “eyes” of the Robot for it
converted the physical signal to electrical signal. In addition,
cooperated with microprocessor and software code, the motion
of the robot is based on the message from the sensor. In this
work, the sensor uses light as an input to detect the light which
is reflected by ground from the light emitter. First of all, building
IR sensor circuit on the bread board to test whether the circuit
can work or not. Later, Implementing the prototype circuit on
Veroboard to get a more permanent output. Lastly, Soldering the
circuit on Veroboard.

2.Description of hardware and software design

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 Figure 1: List of parts:

Figure 2: Schematic of light detection circuit

Figure 3: Using a comparator to provide a digital output

On the left side of the schematic, the IR Led is used to provide

the light signal, and the 390Ω resistor is used to prevent IR led
from overcurrent.

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On the other side, the photodiode which can convert light energy
into voltage was chosen to receive the reflected signal from IR
led. Moreover, using operational amplifier to amplify the output
to a useable signal. Besides, the resistor(1M) is a vital
component because the value of the resistor is positive
proportion to amplify ability. In addition, the comparator circuit
provides an outline of how the circuit works. The voltage of
inverting input is set by the potentiometer so that the output is
high as well as LED lights on when the light is above a typical
level. on the contrary, when the voltage drops to a particular
level, the output shift to a low state and the LED light off.

the equation of the op-amp:

𝑉𝑜 = 𝐺(𝑉+ − 𝑉−)

Lastly, the led is used for showing whether circuit working

properly or not. If the led light up, it means that the circuit
working properly.

3.Result, analysis and discussion

Experiment process

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According to the experimental guidance (Lab sheet), build IR
sensor circuit on the breadboard, in the process of making
breadboard, it was found that the photodiode cathode was not
connected to the ground, and the LED and photodiode were not
placed at the same time due to the lack of understanding of the
principle at the beginning, which resulted in no obvious effect on
the positive.

1. Signal

Analog output (Figure4) increases slowly when the finger is

placed above the receiver.

Figure 4: Analog output(breadboard)

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After the digital output (Figure5) is put on the finger, the signal
suddenly increases. After removing the finger, the signal is
restored to the original size.

Figure 5: digital output

2. In accordance with the breadboard built on the circuit, in turn,

placed components on the Veroboard, and take the soldering

Don't place lm358 chip on the Veroboard while soldering,

because the high temperature will damage the components, so
the first IC holder on board for soldering, and then the chip is
placed on top and use the tape to ensure that components will
not fall off when soldering.

During the first test, I chose the oscilloscope Ground lead

received signal generator (general function) ground port, only to

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get sin wave, and does not meet the requirements of the
experimental waveform, and eventually found out that the signal
generator ground port interferes the output signal. Finally,
connected the negative terminal with the negative port of the
oscilloscope, it displays the correct wave.

The signals are basically the same as before on the Breadboard

Fugure6: Digital output (veroboard)

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 Figure7: analog output (veroboard)

4.Conclusion

In this experiment, with building the circuit successfully, it is

convenient to observe the output signal. Both analog output and
digital output can be seen clearly via Oscilloscope.

Because this optical sensor is constructed for the line following

robots, the digital output is the one used as the message for
processing by other equipment (Arduino).

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5.Reference

[1]S. Phoha, T. La Porta and C. Griffin, Sensor Network Operations.

Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006.
[2]"ArcBotics - Line Following", Arcbotics.com, 2017. [Online].
Available: http://arcbotics.com/lessons/line-following/. [Accessed:
07- Dec- 2017].
[3]"lab sheet of Introduction to Sensors and Line
Following", Moodle.nottingham.ac.uk, 2017. [Online]. Available:
http://moodle.nottingham.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/4169877/mod_resour
ce/content/2/Lab%20Sheet.pdf. [Accessed: 07- Dec- 2017].

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6.Appendix A

Figure 8: LM358 pinout

7.Appendix B

Photo resistor is a light-controlled variable resistor.

Figure 7 shows the schematic symbol (a) for LDR and the graph (b)
of the resistance as a function of the light level