A smart gas sensor for environmental monitoring, compliant with the IEEE 1451 standard and featuring a simplified transducer interface

In this paper, we describe the structure of a multiprocessor control system for a gas sensing array, inspired to the IEEE 1451 standard. The system (Smart Transducer Interface Module (STIM)) features a simplified Transducer Independent Interface (TII) based on a 3-wire RS232 asynchronous communication and is conceived as a cluster between identical monosensor subsystems and a central Controller. After a brief illustration of the gas sensor array, an overview on the modular system architecture, on the basic monosensor modules and of the simplified TII will be given. Finally, we will illustrate the characterisation of the system performances and the experimental results obtained with the proposed gas sensing array. © 2007 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.