The Hindu : Whiz-kids develop pressure sensors

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 23, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Whiz-kids develop pressure sensors

By T.V. Sivanandan

GULBARGA Oct. 22. Two students of a college here have developed a cost-effective device using optical fibre cables to sense pressure changes.

Girish S. Ronad and Pradeep A. Natikar, II PUC students in Sharanabasaveshwar Residential Public School, which has produced several bright young scientists, worked for over two months to assemble the device.

They told The Hindu that their invention would revolutionise the methods used to sense pressure changes in chemical industries. A conventional weighing pan cost about Rs. 4 lakh, and the device assembled by them using locally available material and optical fibre cable cost just Rs. 2,000. It functioned as effectively as the conventional pans, and in some respects, it performed better and was error free.

Ronad and Natikar said easily available material such as pulse generator, IR LED drive, optical fibre cable, IR photo diode, pulse amplifier, peak detectors, voltmeter, and difference amplifier were used to fabricate the simple device, which could be repaired without any hassles in case of snag.

They said the device could be effectively used in the study of gaseous reversible reactions and accurately weigh substances. Costs of the weighing instruments used now were exorbitant, and their device could prove to be a boon to industrialists. They said the pulse generator and the IR LED drive were used in the first block through which infrared rays are transmitted to the optical fibre cable. The principle followed was total internal reflection. The rays coming out of the cable were received by the IR photodiode which converted them into electric signals.

Natikar said the signals were amplified and the voltage derived from the pulses generated from the pulse amplifier. Using the peak detector, the output voltage of the peak detector was fed to a differential amplifier. This was transferred to a voltmeter to sense the pressure on the optical fibre cable. Even a slight change in the intensity of infrared rays was sensed and amplified using the differential amplifier. The voltmeter at the output of the differential amplifier displayed the change in intensity of infrared rays, which, in turn, displayed the pressure on the fibre.

The students said Y.N. Ravindra, Head of the Department of Electronics in V.G. Women's College, and their Chemistry teacher, Shivaraj M. Sheelvant, motivated them and guided them.

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