Module-2

IoT Sensing and Actuation

NALINA S B
ASST.PROFESSOR
DEPT.OF ECE,JNNCE,SHIVAMOGGA
 Contents
▪Introduction
▪ Sensors
▪ Sensor Characteristics
▪ Sensorial Deviations
▪ Sensing Types
▪ Sensing Considerations
▪ Actuators
▪ Actuator Types
▪ Actuator Characteristics

Textbook 1: Chapter 5 – 5.1 to 5.9

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Introduction
▪ The basic science of sensing and actuation is based on the
process of transduction.
▪Transduction is the process of energy conversion from one form
to another.
▪A transducer is a physical means of enabling transduction.
▪Transducers take energy in any form (for which it is
designed)—electrical, mechanical, chemical, light, sound, and
others—and convert it into another, which may be electrical,
mechanical, chemical, light, sound, and others. Sensors and
actuators are deemed as transducers.

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Sensors
▪ Sensors are devices that can measure, or quantify, or respond to the
ambient changes in their environment or within the intended zone of their
deployment.
▪They generate responses to external stimuli or physical phenomenon
through characterization of the input functions (which are these external
stimuli) and their conversion into typically electrical signals.
▪ For example, heat is converted to electrical signals in a temperature
sensor, or atmospheric pressure is converted to electrical signals in a
barometer.

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The various sensors can be classified based on:
1) power requirements
2) sensor output
3) Measured Property
Power Requirements: The way sensors operate decides the power requirements that must be provided for an
IoT implementation. Some sensors need to be provided with separate power sources for them to function,
whereas some sensors do not require any power sources. Depending on the requirements of

power, sensors can be of two types.

(i) Active: Active sensors do not require an external circuitry or mechanism to provide it with power. It directly
responds to the external stimuli from its ambient environment and converts it into an output signal. For
example, a photodiode converts light into electrical impulses.

(ii) Passive: Passive sensors require an external mechanism to power them up. The sensed properties are
modulated with the sensor’s inherent characteristics to generate patterns in the output of the sensor.

For example, a thermistor’s resistance can be detected by applying voltage difference across it or passing a
current through it.
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Output: The output of a sensor helps in deciding the additional components to be
integrated with an IoT node or system. Typically, almost all modern-day processors are
digital; digital sensors can be directly integrated to the processors.
▪ Sensors are broadly divided into two types, depending on the type of output
generated from these sensors, as follows.
1. Analog: Analog sensors generate an output signal or voltage, which is
proportional (linearly or non-linearly) to the quantity being measured
and is continuous in time and amplitude.
▪ Physical quantities such as temperature, speed, pressure,
displacement, strain, and others are all continuous and categorized as
analog quantities.

For example, a thermometer or a thermocouple can be used for

measuring the temperature of a liquid (e.g., in household water
heaters). These sensors continuously respond to changes in the
temperature of the liquid. NALINA SB ,ASST.DEPT.OF ECE,SHIVAMOGGA 8
2. Digital: These sensors generate the output of discrete time digital
representation (time, or amplitude, or both) of a quantity being measured,
in the form of output signals or voltages.
▪Typically, binary output signals in the form of a logic 1 or a logic 0 for ON
or OFF, respectively are associated with digital sensors.
▪ The generated discrete (non-continuous) values may be output as a
single “bit” (serial transmission), eight of which combine to produce a
single “byte” output (parallel transmission) in digital sensors.

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Measured Property: The property of the environment being measured by the sensors
can be crucial in deciding the number of sensors in an IoT implementation.
▪ Some properties to be measured do not show high spatial variations and can be
quantified only based on temporal variations in the measured property, such as ambient
temperature, atmospheric pressure, and others.
▪ Whereas some properties to be measured show high spatial as well as temporal
variations such as sound, image, and others.

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 Depending on the properties to be measured, sensors can be of two types.
Scalar: Scalar sensors produce an output proportional to the magnitude of the quantity being measured.

▪The output is in the form of a signal or voltage. Scalar physical quantities are those where only the
magnitude of the signal is sufficient for describing or characterizing the phenomenon and
information generation.

▪ Examples of such measurable physical quantities include color, pressure, temperature, strain, and
others.

▪A thermometer or thermocouple is an example of a scalar sensor that has the ability to detect
changes in ambient or object temperatures (depending on the sensor’s configuration). Factors
such as changes in sensor orientation or direction do not affect these sensors (typically).

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▪Vector: Vector sensors are affected by the magnitude as well as the direction and/or orientation of the
property they are measuring.

▪Physical quantities such as velocity and images that require additional information besides their
magnitude for completely categorizing a physical phenomenon are categorized as vector quantities.

▪ Measuring such quantities are undertaken using vector sensors.

▪For example, an electronic gyroscope, which is commonly found in all modern aircraft, is used for detecting
the changes in orientation of the gyroscope with respect to the Earth’s orientation along

all three axes.

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A sensor node is made up of a combination of
sensor/sensors, a processor unit, a radio unit, and a
power unit. The nodes are capable of sensing the
environment they are set to measure and communicate
the information to other sensor nodes or a remote server

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 Sensor Characteristics:
▪ All sensors can be defined by their ability to measure or capture a certain
phenomenon and report them as output signals to various other systems.
▪ However, even within the same sensor type and class, sensors can be
characterized by their ability to sense the phenomenon based on the
following three fundamental properties.
1.Sensor Resolution
2.Sensor Accuracy
3.Sensor Precision

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▪Sensor Resolution: The smallest change in the
measurable quantity that a sensor can detect is referred to as the
resolution of a sensor. For digital sensors, the smallest change in the
digital output that the sensor is capable of quantifying is its sensor
resolution.
▪ The more the resolution of a sensor, the more accurate is the
precision.
▪A sensor’s accuracy does not depend upon its resolution. For
example, a temperature sensor A can detect up to 0:5 C changes in
temperature; whereas another sensor B can detect up to 0:25 C
changes in temperature.
Therefore, the resolution of sensor B is higher than the resolution of
sensor A

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Sensor Accuracy: The accuracy of a sensor is the ability of that sensor to
measure
the environment of a system as close to its true measure as possible.
▪ For example, a weight sensor detects the weight of a 100 kg mass as 99.98 kg.
We can say that this sensor is 99.98% accurate, with an error rate of 0:02%.

▪Sensor Precision: The principle of repeatability governs the precision of a

sensor. Only if, upon multiple repetitions, the sensor is found to have the same
error rate, can it be deemed as highly precise.
▪For example, consider if the same weight sensor described earlier reports
measurements of 98.28 kg, 100.34 kg, and 101.11 kg upon three repeat
measurements for a mass of actual weight of 100 kg. Here, the sensor
precision is not deemed high because of significant variations in the temporal
measurements for the same object under the same conditions.
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 Sensorial Deviations
▪ Most of the sensing in IoT is non-critical, where minor deviations
in sensorial outputs seldom change the nature of the undertaken
tasks.
▪However, some critical applications of IoT, such as
healthcare, industrial process monitoring, and others, do
require sensors with high-quality measurement capabilities.
▪As the quality of the measurement obtained from a sensor is
dependent on a large number of factors, there are a few primary
considerations that must be incorporated during the sensing of
critical systems.

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▪ In the event of a sensor’s output signal going beyond its
designed maximum and minimum capacity for measurement,
the sensor output is truncated to its maximum or minimum
value, which is also the sensor’s limits.
▪The measurement range between a sensor’s characterized
minimum and maximum values is also referred to as the fullscale
range of that sensor.
▪Under real conditions, the sensitivity of a sensor may differ
from the value specified for that sensor leading to sensitivity
error.
▪ This deviation is mostly attributed to sensor fabrication errors
and its calibration.

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▪ If the output of a sensor differs from the actual value to be
measured by a constant, the sensor is said to have an offset error
or bias.
▪For example, while measuring an actual temperature of 0 C, a
temperature sensor outputs 1:1 C every time. In this case, the sensor is
said to have an offset error or bias of 1:1 C.
▪ Drift: If the output signal of a sensor changes slowly and
independently of the measured property, this behavior of the
sensor’s output is termed as drift.
▪ Physical changes in the sensor or its material may result in long-term drift, which
can span over months or years. Noise is a temporally varying random deviation
of signals.

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Hysteresis error: if a sensor’s output varies/deviates due to deviations
in the sensor’s previous input values, it is referred to as hysteresis
error.

Quantization error : if the digital output of a sensor is an approximation

of the measured property, it induces quantization error.
▪This error can be defined as the difference between the actual analog signal
and its closest digital approximation during the sampling stage of the analog to
digital conversion. Similarly, dynamic errors caused due to mishandling of
sampling frequencies can give rise to aliasing errors.

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 Sensing Types
▪Sensing can be broadly divided into four different categories based on
the nature of the environment being sensed and the physical sensors
being used to do so.
1) scalar sensing
2) multimedia sensing
3) hybrid sensing
4) virtual sensing

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Scalar sensing: Scalar sensing encompasses the sensing of

features that can be quantified simply by measuring changes in the

amplitude of the measured values with respect to time.

▪Quantities such as ambient temperature, current, atmospheric

pressure, rainfall, light, humidity, flux, and others are considered as
scalar values as they normally do not have a directional or spatial
property assigned with them.
▪ Simply measuring the changes in their values with passing time
provides enough information about these quantities.
The sensors used for measuring these scalar quantities are referred to as
scalar sensors, and the act is known as scalar sensing.

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▪The sensors used for measuring these scalar quantities are
referred to as scalar sensors, and the act is known as scalar
sensing.

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Multimedia sensing
▪ Multimedia sensing encompasses the
sensing of features that have a spatial
variance property associated with the
property of temporal variance .
▪ Unlike scalar sensors, multimedia sensors
are used for capturing the changes in
amplitude of a quantifiable property
concerning space (spatial) as well as time
(temporal).

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Hybrid sensing
The act of using scalar as well as
multimedia sensing at the same
time is referred to as hybrid
sensing.

▪ For example, in an agricultural field, it is required to measure the

soil conditions at regular intervals of time to determine plant health.
▪ Sensors such as soil moisture and soil temperature are deployed
underground to estimate the soil’s water retention capacity and the
moisture being held by the soil at any instant of time.

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▪However, this setup only determines whether the plant is getting enough water or
not. There may be a host of other factors besides water availability, which may
affect a plant’s health.

▪The additional inclusion of a camera sensor with the plant may be able to
determine the actual condition of a plant by additionally determining the color of
leaves.

▪The aggregate information from soil moisture, soil temperature, and the camera
sensor will be able to collectively determine a plant’s health at any instant

of time.

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Improving data accuracy
Hybrid sensing combines IoT-sensing with crowdsensing to improve the accuracy, coverage, and
reliability of data.
Precision agriculture
A Hybrid Sensing Platform (HSP) combines ground-based and aerial sensing to improve data
accuracy and reduce costs.
Smart hybrid renewable energy harvesting
IoT devices like sensors and meters can collect real-time data on renewable resources, which can
help with decision-making and system optimization.

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Structural integrity management
Hybrid sensor technology combines data from sensors with a global numerical model of a
structure to create a Hybrid Twin. This can help with root cause analysis, inspection strategy, and
life extension.
Peripheral device emulation
A hybrid approach can support all development phases of IoT products and systems. This can
help with hardware selection, software development, and application test reproducibility.
Secure routing and monitoring
A hybrid routing protocol can inherit properties from other protocols to create a secure routing
mechanism.

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Precision Agriculture

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Structural integrity management

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Plant Health monitoring

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Virtual sensing
Many a time, there is a need for very dense and
large-scale deployment of sensor nodes spread over a
large area for monitoring of parameters. One such
domain is agriculture

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• Here, often, the parameters being measured, such as soil moisture, soil
temperature, and water level, do not show significant spatial variations.
• Hence, if sensors are deployed in the fields of farmer A, it is highly likely
that the measurements from his sensors will be able to provide almost
concise measurements of his neighbor B’s fields; this is especially true
of fields which are immediately surrounding A’s fields.
• Exploiting this property, if the data from A’s field is digitized using an
IoT infrastructure and this system advises him regarding the appropriate
watering,
fertilizer, and pesticide regimen for his crops, this advisory can also be
used by
B for maintaining his crops.
• In short, A ’s sensors are being used for actual measurement of
parameters; whereas virtual data (which does not have actual physical
sensors but uses extrapolation-based measurements) is being used for
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Virtual Sensors

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Sensing Considerations
The following major factors influence the choice of
sensors in IoT-based sensing solutions:
1) Sensing range
2) Accuracy and precision
3) Energy
4) Device size.

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Sensing Range: The sensing range of a sensor node defines the
detection fidelity of that node. Typical approaches to optimize the sensing
range in deployments include fixed k-coverage and dynamic k-coverage.
▪A lifelong fixed k-coverage tends to user in redundancy as it requires a
large number of sensor nodes, the sensing range of some of which may
also overlap.
▪In contrast, dynamic k coverage incorporates mobile sensor nodes post
detection of an event, which, however, is a costly solution and may not be
deployable in all operational areas and terrains.

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▪ The sensing range of a sensor may also be used to signify the
upper
and lower bounds of a sensor’s measurement range.
▪For example, a proximity sensor has a typical sensing range of a
couple of meters.
▪In contrast, a camera has a sensing range varying between tens of
meters to hundreds of meters.
▪ As the complexity of the sensor and its sensing range goes up, its
cost significantly increases.

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Accuracy and Precision:
▪ The accuracy and precision of measurements provided by a sensor are critical in
deciding the operations of specific functional processes. Typically, off-the-shelf consumer
sensors are low on requirements and often very
cheap.
▪ However, their performance is limited to regular application domains. For example, a
standard temperature sensor can be easily integrated with conventional components for
hobby projects and day-to-day applications, but it is not suitable for industrial processes.
▪Regular temperature sensors have a very low-temperature sensing range, as well as
relatively low accuracy and precision. The use of these sensors in industrial applications,
where a precision of up to 3–4 decimal places is required, cannot be facilitated by these
sensors. Industrial sensors are typically very sophisticated, and as a result, very costly.
▪ However, these industrial sensors have very high accuracy and precision score, even
under harsh operating conditions.

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Energy:
▪ The energy consumed by a sensing solution is crucial to determine the lifetime of that

solution and the estimated cost of its deployment.

▪If the sensor or the sensor node is so energy inefficient that it requires replenishment of

its energy sources quite frequently, the effort in maintaining the solution and its cost

goes up; whereas its deployment feasibility goes down.

▪ Consider a scenario where sensor nodes are deployed on the top of glaciers. Once

deployed, access to these nodes is not possible.

▪ If the energy requirements of the sensor nodes are too high, such a deployment will
not last long, and the solution will be highly infeasible as charging or changing of the
energy sources of these sensor nodes is not an option.
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Device Size:
▪Modern-day IoT applications have a wide penetration in all domains of
life. Most of the applications of IoT require sensing solutions which are so
small that they do not hinder any of the regular activities that were
possible before the sensor node deployment was carried out.
▪Larger the size of a sensor node, larger is the obstruction caused by it,
higher is the cost and energy requirements, and lesser is its demand for
the bulk of the IoT applications.
▪Consider a simple human activity detector. If the detection unit is too
large to be carried or too bulky to cause hindrance to regular normal
movements, the demand for this solution would be low. It is because of
this that the onset of wearables took off so strongly.
▪The wearable sensors are highly energy-efficient, small in size, and
almost part of the wearer’s regular wardrobe.

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Actuators

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▪An actuator can be considered as a machine or system’s
component that can affect the movement or control the said
mechanism or the system.
▪Control systems affect changes to the environment or property they
are controlling through actuators.
▪ The system activates the actuator through a control signal, which
may be digital or analog.
▪ The control system of an actuator can be a mechanical or electronic system, a
software-based system (e.g., an autonomous car control system), a human, or
any other input.

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Actuator Types
Broadly, actuators can be divided into seven classes:
1) Hydraulic
2) pneumatic
3) electrical
4) thermal/magnetic
5) mechanical
6) soft, and
7) shape memory polymers.

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Hydraulic actuators: A hydraulic actuator works on the principle
of compression and decompression of fluids. These actuators facilitate
mechanical tasks such as lifting loads through the use of hydraulic power
derived from fluids in cylinders or fluid motors.
▪ The mechanical motion applied to a hydraulic actuator is converted to
either linear, rotary, or oscillatory motion.
▪The almost incompressible property of liquids is used in hydraulic
actuators for exerting significant force.
▪These hydraulic actuators are also considered as stiff systems. The
actuator’s limited acceleration restricts its usage.

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Pneumatic actuators
▪A pneumatic actuator works on the principle of compression and decompression of
gases.
▪These actuators use a vacuum or compressed air at high pressure and convert it into
either linear or rotary motion.
▪ Pneumatic rack and pinion actuators are commonly used for valve controls of water
pipes. Pneumatic actuators are considered as compliant systems.
▪The actuators using pneumatic energy for their operation are typically characterized by
the quick response to starting and stopping signals.
▪Small pressure changes can be used for generating large forces through these
actuators.
▪Pneumatic brakes are an example of this type of actuator which is so responsive that
they can convert small pressure changes applied by drives to generate the massive
force required to stop or slow down a moving vehicle.
▪ Pneumatic actuators are responsible for converting pressure into force.
▪The power source in the pneumatic actuator does not need to be stored in reserve for
its operation.

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Electric actuators
▪Typically, electric motors are used to power an electric actuator by generating
mechanical torque. This generated torque is translated into the motion of a motor’s
shaft or for switching (as in relays).
▪For example, actuating equipments such as solenoid valves control the flow of water
in pipes in response to electrical signals.
▪This class of actuators is considered one of the cheapest, cleanest and speedy
actuator
types available.

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Soft actuators
▪Soft actuators (e.g., polymer-based) consists of elastomeric polymers
that are used as embedded fixtures in flexible materials such as cloth,
paper, fiber, particles, and others.
▪The conversion of molecular level microscopic changes into
tangible macroscopic deformations is the primary working principle
of this class of actuators.
▪These actuators have a high stake in modern-day robotics. They are
designed to handle fragile objects such as agricultural fruit harvesting, or
performing precise operations like manipulating the internal organs
during robot-assisted surgeries.

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Shape memory polymers
▪ Shape memory polymers (SMP) are considered as smart materials that respond to
some external stimulus by changing their shape, and then revert to their original shape
once the affecting stimulus is removed .

▪Features such as high strain recovery, biocompatibility, low density, and

biodegradability characterize these materials.

▪SMP-based actuators function similar to our muscles. Modern-day SMPs have been
designed to respond to a wide range of stimuli such as pH changes, heat differentials,
light intensity, and frequency changes, magnetic changes, and others.

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▪ Photopolymer/light-activated polymers (LAP) are a particular type of SMP,
which
require light as a stimulus to operate.
▪LAP-based actuators are characterized by their rapid response times. Using
only the variation of light frequency or its intensity, LAPs can be controlled
remotely without any physical contact.
▪The development of LAPs whose shape can be changed by the application
of a specific frequency of light have been reported.
▪The polymer retains its shape after removal of the activating light. In order to
change the polymer back to its original shape, a light stimulus of a different
frequency has to be applied to the polymer.

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Actuator Characteristics
▪The choice or selection of actuators is crucial in an IoT deployment, where
a control mechanism is required after sensing and processing of the
information obtained from the sensed environment.
▪ Actuators perform the physically heavier tasks in an IoT deployment; tasks
which require moving or changing the orientation of physical objects,
changing the state of objects, and other such activities.
▪The correct choice of actuators is necessary for the long-term sustenance
and continuity of operations, as well as for increasing the lifetime of the
actuators themselves.

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Weight:
▪ The physical weight of actuators limits its application scope.
▪For example, the use of heavier actuators is generally preferred
for industrial applications and applications requiring no mobility of
the IoT deployment.
▪ In contrast, lightweight actuators typically find common usage in
portable systems in vehicles, drones, and home IoT applications.
▪It is to be noted that this is not always true. Heavier actuators
also have selective usage in mobile systems, for example,
landing gears and engine motors in aircraft.

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Power Rating:
▪ This helps in deciding the nature of the application with which an actuator
can be associated. The power rating defines the minimum and maximum
operating power an actuator can safely withstand without damage to itself.
▪ Generally, it is indicated as the power-to-weight ratio for actuators. For
example, smaller servo motors used in hobby projects typically have a
maximum rating of 5 VDC, 500 mA, which is suitable for an
operations-driven battery-based power source.
▪ Exceeding this limit might be detrimental to the performance of the
actuator and may cause burnout of the motor. In contrast to this, servo
motors in larger applications have a rating of 460 VAC, 2:5 A, which
requires standalone power supply systems for operations.
▪It is to be noted that actuators with still higher ratings are available and
vary according to application requirements.

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Torque to Weight Ratio:
▪ The ratio of torque to the weight of the moving part of an instrument/device is referred
to as its torque/weight ratio.
▪This indicates the sensitivity of the actuator. Higher is the weight of the moving part;
lower will be its torque to weight ratio for a given power.
Stiffness and Compliance: The resistance of a material against deformation is
known as its stiffness, whereas compliance of a material is the opposite of stiffness.
▪ Stiffness can be directly related to the modulus of elasticity of that material. Stiff
systems are considered more accurate than compliant systems as they have a faster
response to the change in load applied to it.
▪For example, hydraulic systems are considered as stiff and non-compliant, whereas
pneumatic systems are considered as compliant.

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