Development of an Arduino shield for measurement and characterization of resistive sensors

¹ Dept. of Electronic Engineering and Industrial Chemistry and Engineering, University of Messina, Contrada di Dio, S. Agata, 98166, Messina, Italy
² National Institute of Metrological Research, (INRIM), str. delle Cacce, 91, 10135 Turin, Italy

^a Corresponding author: p.capra@inrim.it

Abstract

In this paper is reported the activity regarding the development of a measurement system for Arduino DUE environment, able to perform electrical characterization of resistive sensing films under UV irradiation and to send data by USB and by Bluetooth protocols. The system is composed of two modular boards (Shields) the first for the electrical characterization, the latter for Bluetooth connection. The resistance variation of the sensor can be evaluated by properly choosing the capacitance value and by measuring the period (frequency) of a custom inverter-based oscillator. The GUI and the developed firmware are able to perform the real time monitoring of the sensor responses. The developed shield is able to measure the response of up to six sensors under UV radiation by means of LED devices. The GUIs were developed for the connections with Personal Computer, Tablet and Smartphone. The measurement apparatus was calibrated by measuring commercial resistors and then validated by characterizing Indium Oxides sensing films deposited by screen-printing technique on alumina substrates with platinum interdigitated electrodes on parallel configuration.