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Read more about the article Create a Distance Sensor using PSLab

Create a Distance Sensor using PSLab

PSLab device is a small lab which supports a ton of features. Among its many features, integrating a distance measuring sensor like HC SR04 sonar sensor into it is one of them. This blog post will bring out the basic concepts behind a sonar sensor available in the current market, how it measures distance and how it is implemented in the PSLab device.

A sonar sensor uses a sound wave with a very high frequency. These waves are called ultrasonic waves. They cannot be heard by the naked ear. Human ear can only hear frequencies from 20 Hz up to 20 kHz. Generally HC SR04 sensors use a wave with frequency as high as 40 kHz so this makes sense. The basic principal behind the sensor is the reflectance property of sound. Time is calculated from the transmission time up to the time receiving the reflected sound wave. Then using general moment equation S = ut; with the use of speed of sound, the distance can be measured.

The figure shows a HC SR04 ultrasound sensor. They are quiet famous in the electronic field; especially among hobbyists in making simple robots and DIY projects. They can be easily configured to measure distance from the sensor up to 400 cm with a measuring angle of 15 degrees. This angular measurement comes into action with the fact that sound travels through a medium in a spherical nature. This sensor will not give accurate measurements when used for scenarios like measuring distance to very thin objects as they reflect sound poorly or there will not be any reflectance at all.

There are four pins in the HC SR04 sonar sensor. Corner pins in the two sides are for powering up the Sonar sensor. The two pins named ECHO and TRIG pins are the important pins in this context. When the TRIG pin (Trigger for short) is excited with a set of 8 square pulses at a rate of 40 kHz, the ECHO pin will reach to logic HIGH state which is the supply voltage (+5 V). When the transmitted sound wave is reflected back to the sensor, this high state of the ECHO pin will shift to logic LOW state. If a timer is turned on when the ECHO pin goes to logic HIGH state, we can measure how long it was taken for the sound beam to return to the sensor by turning off the timer when the ECHO pin goes to logic LOW state.

Having described the general implementation of a sonar sensor; a similar implementation is available in PSLab device. As mentioned earlier, TRIG pin requires a triggering pulse of 8 set of square waves at 40 kHz. This is achieved in PSLab using SQR pulse generating pins. The time is measured from the transmitting point until the receiving point to evaluate the distance. The real distance to the obstacle in front of the sensor can be calculated using following steps;

  1. Measure total round trip time of the sound beam. Take it as t
  2. Calculate the time taken for the beam to travel from sensor to the obstacle. It will be t/2
  3. Use motion equation S = ut to calculate the actual distance taking u = speed of sound in air. Substituting the time value calculated in step 2 to t, S will produce the distance

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Read more about the article How to Collaborate Design on Hardware Schematics in PSLab Project

How to Collaborate Design on Hardware Schematics in PSLab Project

Generally ECAD tools are not built to support collaborative features such as git in software programming. PSLab hardware is developed using an open source ECAD tool called KiCAD. It is a practice in the electronic industry to use hierarchical blocks to support collaboration. One person can work on a specific block having rest of the design untouched. This will support a workaround to have a team working on a one hardware design just like a software design. In PSLab hardware repository, many developers can work simultaneously using this technique without having any conflicts in project files.

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) designing is an art. The way the components are placed and how they are interconnected through different type of wires and pads, it is an art for hardware designing engineers. If they do not use auto-route, PCB design for the same schematic will be quite different from one another.

There are two major approaches in designing PCBs.

  • Top Down method
  • Bottom Up method

Any of these methods can be implemented in PSLab hardware repository to support collaboration by multiple developers at the same time.

Top Down Method

In this method the design is starting from the most abstract definitions. We can think of this as a black box with several wires coming out of it. The user is aware of how to use the wires and to which devices they need to be connected. But the inside of the black box is not visible. Then a designer can open up this box and break the design down to several small black boxes which can perform a subset of functionalities the bigger black box did. He can go on breaking it down to even smaller boxes and reach the very bottom where basic components are found such as transistors, resistors, diodes etc.

Bottom Up Method

In the bottom up method, the opposite approach of the top down method is used. Small parts are combined together to design a much bigger part and they are combined together to build up an even bigger part which will eventually create the final design. Our human body is a great example for a use of bottom up method. Cells create organ; organs create systems and systems create the body.

Designing Top Down Designs using KiCAD

In PCB designing, the designers are free to choose whatever the approach they prefer more suitable for their project. In this blog, the Top Down method is used to demonstrate how to create a design from the abstract concepts. This will illustrate how to create a design with one layer deep in design using hierarchical blocks. However, these design procedures can be carried out as many times as the designer want to create depending on the complexity of the project.

Step 01 – Create a new project in KiCAD

Step 02 – Open up Eeschema to begin the design

Step 03 – Create a Hierarchical Sheet

Step 04 – Place the hierarchical sheet on the design sheet and give it a name

Step 05 – Enter sheet

Step 06 – Place components and create a schematic design inside the sheet and place hierarchical labels

Step 07 – Define the labels as input or output and give them an identifier. Once done, place them on appropriate places and connect with wires

Step 08 – Go back to main sheet to complete the hierarchical block

Step 09 – Place hierarchical pins on the block

Click on the “Place hierarchical pin” icon from the toolbar and click on the block. The pins can be placed on anywhere on the block. As a convention, input pins are placed on the left side and the output pins are placed on the right side of the block.

Step 10 – Complete the circuit

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Read more about the article Generate Sine Waves with PSLab Device

Generate Sine Waves with PSLab Device

Sine wave is type of a waveform with much of a use in frequency related studies in laboratories as well as power electronics to control the level of input to devices. PSLab device  is capable of generating sine waves with a very high accuracy using PSLab-firmware and a set of filters implemented in the PSLab-hardware.

How Sine Wave is generated in PSLab Device

PSLab device uses a PIC micro-controller as its main processor. It has several pins which can generate square pulses at different duty cycles. These are known as PWM pins. PWM waves are a type of a waveform with the shape resembling a set of square pulses. They have an attributed called ‘Duty Cycle’ which varies between 0% to 100%. A PWM wave with 0% duty cycle means simply a zero amplitude block of square pulses repeating at every period. When duty cycle is set to 100%, it is a set of square pulses with the highest amplitude throughout the period repeating in every period. The following figure illustrates how the PWM wave changes according to its duty cycle. Image is extracted from http://static.righto.com/images/pwm1.gif PSLab device is capable of generating this type of pulses with arbitrary duty cycles as per user requirements.

In this context where sine waves are generated, these PWM pins are used to generate a Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulated (SPWM) waveform as the first step to output a sine wave with high frequency accuracy. The name SPWM is derived from the fact that the duty cycle of the waveform follows an alternatively increasing and decreasing pattern as illustrated in the figure below.

Deriving a set of duty cycles which follows a sinusoidal pattern is a redundant task. Without deriving them mathematically, PSLab firmware has four hard-coded sine_tables which stores different duty cycle values related to a SPWM waveform. These sine_tables in the firmware related to different resolutions set by the PSLab device user. The following code block is extracted from PSLab firmware related to one of the sine_tables. It is used to generate the SPWM wave with 512 data points. Each data point represents a square pulse with a different pulse width. The duty ratio is calculated from dividing an entry by the value 512 and converting it to a percentage.

sineTable1[] = {256, 252, 249, 246, 243, 240, 237, 234, 230, 227, 224, 221, 218, 215, 212, 209, 206, 203, 200, 196, 193, 190, 187, 184, 181, 178, 175, 172, 169, 166, 164, 161, 158, 155, 152, 149, 146, 143, 141, 138, 135, 132, 130, 127, 124, 121, 119, 116, 114, 111, 108, 106, 103, 101, 98, 96, 93, 91, 89, 86, 84, 82, 79, 77, 75, 73, 70, 68, 66, 64, 62, 60, 58, 56, 54, 52, 50, 48, 47, 45, 43, 41, 40, 38, 36, 35, 33, 32, 30, 29, 27, 26, 25, 23, 22, 21, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 40, 41, 43, 45, 47, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 73, 75, 77, 79, 82, 84, 86, 89, 91, 93, 96, 98, 101, 103, 106, 108, 111, 114, 116, 119, 121, 124, 127, 130, 132, 135, 138, 141, 143, 146, 149, 152, 155, 158, 161, 164, 166, 169, 172, 175, 178, 181, 184, 187, 190, 193, 196, 200, 203, 206, 209, 212, 215, 218, 221, 224, 227, 230, 234, 237, 240, 243, 246, 249, 252, 256, 259, 262, 265, 268, 271, 274, 277, 281, 284, 287, 290, 293, 296, 299, 302, 305, 308, 311, 315, 318, 321, 324, 327, 330, 333, 336, 339, 342, 345, 347, 350, 353, 356, 359, 362, 365, 368, 370, 373, 376, 379, 381, 384, 387, 390, 392, 395, 397, 400, 403, 405, 408, 410, 413, 415, 418, 420, 422, 425, 427, 429, 432, 434, 436, 438, 441, 443, 445, 447, 449, 451, 453, 455, 457, 459, 461, 463, 464, 466, 468, 470, 471, 473, 475, 476, 478, 479, 481, 482, 484, 485, 486, 488, 489, 490, 492, 493, 494, 495, 496, 497, 498, 499, 500, 501, 502, 503, 503, 504, 505, 505, 506, 507, 507, 508, 508, 509, 509, 509, 510, 510, 510, 511, 511, 511, 511, 511, 511, 511, 511, 511, 511, 511, 510, 510, 510, 509, 509, 509, 508, 508, 507, 507, 506, 505, 505, 504, 503, 503, 502, 501, 500, 499, 498, 497, 496, 495, 494, 493, 492, 490, 489, 488, 486, 485, 484, 482, 481, 479, 478, 476, 475, 473, 471, 470, 468, 466, 464, 463, 461, 459, 457, 455, 453, 451, 449, 447, 445, 443, 441, 438, 436, 434, 432, 429, 427, 425, 422, 420, 418, 415, 413, 410, 408, 405, 403, 400, 397, 395, 392, 390, 387, 384, 381, 379, 376, 373, 370, 368, 365, 362, 359, 356, 353, 350, 347, 345, 342, 339, 336, 333, 330, 327, 324, 321, 318, 315, 311, 308, 305, 302, 299, 296, 293, 290, 287, 284, 281, 277, 274, 271, 268, 265, 262, 259};

 

The frequency of the sine wave is achieved using interrupts generated at different time intervals depending on the frequency set by the user. The accuracy of the frequency depends on the number of elements in the sine table array which is known as resolution. As the number of points in the table increases, the accuracy will be increased or resolution will be high. PSLab uses Timer3 and Timer4 counters available in the PIC micro-controller to generate the interrupt time intervals. If the required frequency is f, the interrupt time interval can be derived as

Interrupt time = f/512

The derived SPWM waveform will be then passed through a cascaded setup of Op Amp and RC filter as in Figure 1 to cut off the high frequency components and combine the square pulses in such a manner that a smoother waveform is derived resembling a sine wave.

Filter Circuit in PSLab

Figure 1

This is an inverting filter circuit designed using Op Amps available in PSLab-hardware. The SPWM waveform will be connected to the circuit through R1 resistor. It uses C1 capacitor which creates a short circuit path to high frequency components to ground which will let only the low frequency components to pass through. This will smoothen the square waves reducing the sharp edges forming a simple RC filter circuit.

The C2 capacitor plays an important role in generating the sine wave. It will compensate any voltage drops and absorb excess voltage levels that might occur during transition to let the output waveform follow a path which is similar to a smooth sine wave.

The output waveform can be observed from the SINE1 pin of the PSLab device. As in this schematic, it is the ‘Sine Wave’ pin to the right starting from the Op Amp output.

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Read more about the article Sine Wave Generator

Sine Wave Generator

PSLab by FOSSASIA can generate sine waves with arbitrary frequencies. This is very helpful to teachers, students and electronic enthusiasts to study about different frequencies and how systems respond to them. In the device, it uses digital signal processing to derive a smooth sine wave. Except to digital implementation, there are conventional analog implementations to generate a sine wave.

Image from https://betterexplained.com/articles/intuitive-understanding-of-sine-waves/

sine_wave

The most famous method to generate a sine wave is the Wien Bridge Oscillator. It is a frequency selective bridge with a range of arbitrary frequencies. This oscillator has a good stability when it is functioning at its resonance frequency while maintaining a very low signal distortion.           Let’s take a look at this circuit. We can clearly see that there is a series combination of a resistor and a capacitor at A and a parallel combination of a resistor and a capacitor at B joining at the non-inverting pin of the OpAmp. The series combination of RC circuit is nothing but a high pass filter that allows only high frequency components to pass through. The parallel combination of RC circuit is a Low pass filter that allows only the low frequency components of a signal to pass through. Once these two are combined, a band pass filter is created allowing only a specific frequency component to pass through.

It is necessary that the resistor value and the capacitor values should be the same in order to have better performance without any distortion. Assuming that they are same, using complex algebra we can prove that the voltage at V+(3) is one third of the Voltage coming out from the pin (1) of OpAmp.

Using the resonance frequency calculation using RC values, we can determine the frequency of the output sine wave.

f=1/2RC

The combination of two resistors at the inverting pin of the Op Amp controls the gain factor. It is calculated as 1+R1/R2. Since the input to the non-inverting terminal is 1/3 of the output voltage, this gain factor should be maintained at 3. Values greater than 3 will cause a ramping behavior in the sine wave and values below 3 will show an attenuation. So the gain should be set preciously.

Equating 1+R1/R2 to 3, we can obtain a ratio for R1/R2 as 2. That implies R1 should be as twice the resistance of R2. Make sure these resistances are in the power of kilo Ohms. That is to ensure that the leakage current is minimum to the Op Amp. Let’s select R1 = 200K and R2 = 100K

This oscillator supports a range of frequencies. Let’s assume we want to generate a sine wave having 500 Hz. Using f=1/2RC, we can choose arbitrary values for R and C. Substituting values to the formula yields a value for RC = 318 x10e-6

Using practical values for R as 10k, C value can be approximated to 33nF. This oscillator is capable of generating a stable 500 Hz sinusoidal waveform. By changing the resistive and capacitive values of block A and B, we can generate a wide range of frequencies that are supported by the Op Amp because Op Amps have a limited bandwidth it can be functional inside.

It’s worth to note a few facts about generating sine waves using a digital implementation. In analog circuitry, the component values have a tolerance which makes the calculations not perfectly align with the real values. Due to this reason, the actual output will differ from the desired output. In our example to generate 500 Hz sine wave, the capacitors and resistors may have different values and they may have not matched. But with a digital implementation, we can achieve the accuracy and flexibility we require.

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Read more about the article Regulating Voltage in PSLab

Regulating Voltage in PSLab

Electronic components are highly sensitive to voltages and currents across them. Most of the devices in the current market work in the voltage levels of 3.3V, 5V, 12V and 15V. If they are provided with a different voltage than the one required by the vendor, they would not function. If the voltage supplied is higher, they might burn off. The PSLab device requires separate voltage levels such as 3.3V and 5V for its operation.

There are commercial voltage regulators available in the market designed with advanced feedback techniques and models. But we can create out own voltage regulator. In this blog post, I am going to introduce you to a few basic models capable of regulating voltage to a desired level.

Current implementation of PSLab device uses a voltage regulator derived using a zener-resistor combination. This type of regulators have a higher sensitivity to current and their operation may vary when the supplied or the drawn current is lower than the expected values. In order to have a stable voltage regulation, this combination needs to be replaced with a much stable transistor-zener combination.

Before go into much details, let’s get to know a few basic concepts and devices related to.

Zener Diode

Zener DiodeZener diode is a type of diode which has a different operational behavior than the general diode. General diodes allow current to flow only in one direction. If a current in the reverse is applied, they will break and become unusable after a certain voltage level known as Breakdown Voltage. But Zener diodes are specifically designed to function desirably once this break down voltage has been passed and unlike general diode, it can recover back to normal when the voltage is removed or reduced.

Transistor

This is the game changing invention of the 20th century. There are two types of Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJT) available in the market. They are known as NPN and PNP transistors. The difference is based on the polarity of diodes used.

An NPN transistor can be modeled as a combination of two diodes –[NP → PN]– and a PNP transistor can be modeled as –[PN → NP]– using two diodes.

There are three pins to take notice in BJTs. They are illustrated in the diagram shown here;

  1. Base
  2. Collector
  3. Emitter

The amazing fact about BJTs is that the amount of current provided to the Base terminal will control the flow of current going through Collector and Emitter. Also note that always there is a voltage drop across the Base terminal and the Emitter terminal. This typically takes a value of 0.7 V

Voltage Divider

This is the most basic type of voltage regulator. It simply divides the voltage supplied by the battery with the ratio R1:R2. In the following configuration, the output voltage can be calculated using the voltage division rule;

Which is equal to 12 * 100/(100+200) = 4 V

There is a huge drawback with this design. The above calculation is valid only if there is no load impedance is present at the output terminals.

Generally there will be a load impedance and the supplied voltage cannot be easily calculated as the load impedance is unknown to the regulator.

Resistor-Zener Voltage Regulator

Due to the load dependability of the previous model with the load, an improved model can be introduced as follows. This is the current implementation of voltage regulator in PSLab device.

Unlike the previous model, this model ensures that the output voltage will be maintained constant across the output terminals within a range of supply voltage values.

Let’s assume the supply voltage is increased. Then the current flow through the zener diode will increase in order to maintain a constant voltage across the output terminals. In case if the supply voltage drops, then the zener current will decrease and a stable voltage across the output terminals will be maintained.

This design also comes with a slight draw back. This can be explained using the characteristic curve of a zener diode. (Figure is taken from : http://www.electronics-tutorials. ws/diode/diode_7.html)

For a zener diode to maintain a constant voltage level across output terminals, there should be a minimum current flowing through the diode. If this current is not flowing in the zener, there won’t be a regulation. Assume there is a very low load impedance. Then the current supplied by the source will find an easier path to flow other than through the diode. This will affect the regulatory circuit and the desired voltage will not appear across the output terminals.

To compensate the drawback, a much improved design is available using transistors.

Transistor-Zener Voltage Regulator

This is the proposed improvement to the voltage regulatory circuit in PSLab device. In this model, the zener diode is taken away from the load circuit as the current to the load is supplied from the transistor directly. This avoids current limitations to the zener diode had in the previous model and transistor acts as a bridge.

A small current through the Base terminal (1) will support a higher current flow through the output terminal via Collector (2) and Emitter (3). This amplification ratio is in the range of few hundreds for a typical BJT.

A capacitor has been added to compensate ripples from the supply source. If a higher current flow is required through the output terminals, the NPN transistor can be replaced by a Darlington pair.

Using a 5.6 V zener diode and MMBT3904/6 transistors, this model has been implemented in the newest version of PSLab device. They will be supplying a constant voltage of +/- 5V to V+ and V- pins in the device.

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