Adaptable thermal compensation system for strain gage sensors based on programmable chip

This paper presents a new design of an adaptable system for strain gage sensors based on a programmable chip. The system is designed, in particular, to meet the requirement of flexibility and complex computations in the field of thermal compensation algorithms of strain gages. To satisfy the real-time processing constraints and system parameterization, parts of the processing algorithm are implemented in hardware and others are implemented in software. This new architecture, consisting of hardware and software functionalities, is implemented on a Field programmable gate array (FPGA) including a core processor. FPGA is used as a hardware target, thanks to its high flexibility and reconfiguration. A description of the methodology developed for the thermal compensation of the system is reported. Tradeoffs between time consumption and efficiency are studied through several methodologies. Experimental results and an analysis for three different sensors in the temperature scale -30 to +150 degrees C are presented. (c) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.