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DEC10-06: Frozen Precipitation Detection System for SODAR Systems . by Ashor Chirackal , Imran Butt, Michelle Tan & Luke Lehman Advisor: Prof. Tim Bigelow Client: Josh Underwood: Atmospheric Systems Corporation. Project Plan.
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DEC10-06: Frozen Precipitation Detection System for SODAR Systems by Ashor Chirackal, Imran Butt, Michelle Tan & Luke Lehman Advisor: Prof. Tim Bigelow Client: Josh Underwood: Atmospheric Systems Corporation
Project Plan Optimizing the number of times the heater is turned on to reduce power consumption by designing a more efficient and accurate method to detect the conditions in which the SODAR equipment needs to use the heater. The necessary conditions and requirements are outlined below: • Able to tell the difference of snow and ice accumulation on the reflector plate. • Able to detect powdery snow that distorts the SODAR readings and needs to be melted. • Turn heater off after snow has melted.
Piezoelectric sensors plates Temperature Sensor SODAR speakers Heater Concept Sketch
Design Block Diagram Piezoelectric films Amplifier Notch Filter Low-pass Filter Amplifier Temperature Sensor Sample/Hold Microprocessor SODAR
Test Plan • Completed • Obtain several piezoelectric sensor applicable to the project • Small level testing the piezoelectric sensor characteristics to determine the best option • Build circuit components(20%) • Test piezoelectric sensors under specific conditions(50%) • Future • Model circuit components • Obtain microcontroller and programming the microcontroller • Integrate components • High level testing using the completed design
Hardware/ Software • Piezoelectric sensor • Detects sound waves emitted from the SODAR • Minimal power consumption • Differentiate amplitudes of clear reflector versus snow covered reflector • Amplifier • Convert small piezo signal to usable level(0-5V) • Filters • Attenuate signal outside 2-5kHz • Peak Detector • Samples and holds values produced by piezo films for processing • Microcontroller • collect and process data from the temperature sensor and the detector (piezoelectric sensors) • determine whether the heater should be turned on or off based on the data collected
Modeling buffered peak detector Output to microcontroller LM 741 LM 741 Input from piezo amplifier/filter
Testing Piezo Films With a 3.5k Hz input and peak detection