How fast can a MEMS pressure sensor respond?

At Sensors Expo 2018, Giovanni De Majo from audio and pressure sensor product marketing at ams AG, discusses the company’s pressure sensor demo.

Using two pressure sensors, the demo indicates relative height. Manually moving the pressure sensor up a measuring stick that shows the height change, a display also provides a continuous measurement from a relative position, one at 105 cm and another at 52 cm. Dropping the sensor provides a spike response for rapidly triggering a subsequent action. Using two sensors cancels noise from surrounding sensors. With both sensors detecting the same event you know it is real and not an anomaly. The sensors’ high-frequency operation, low power consumption and high accuracy (well below 10 cm) are shown in the demo.

Ams offers board mounted pressure sensors, pressure sensor modules, pressure transmitters and customized pressure solutions for gage, bidirectional differential, absolute and barometric readings. Output types include analog, current loop and digital (I2C). Among the lowest pressure range that the company addresses is 5 mbar (0.0725 psi) with a product such as the AMS 6915-0005-D.

A starter kit with user guide is available for the AMS 6915. It consists of a communication board with a USB connector and an adapter board with a ZIF socket for the pressure sensor and a 4-pin plug connector. The starter kit can program an individual I2C address into AMS 6915 sensors.

In addition to fluid level and other height measurements, typical applications for ams sensors include medical instrumentation, heating ventilation and air conditioning and industrial process control.