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Electronic Sensors
Name: Josephine C. Tenorio
Status: Student
Age: 18
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
What is an electronic sensor? How is it made, and what
are its components?
How and where is it used?
Replies:
A sensor is something that tells something about its environment. An
electronic sensor is a sensor that tells this information about its
environment by creating an electrical signal. This signal should change as
the thing it is measuring changes.
In your house you have a thermostat which controls the heat. It measures
the temperature of the house, and converts this to an electrical signal.
This signal is then sent down wires, back to the heater itself. When the
signal says its too cold, the heater comes on.
There are many different things to measure -- heat, light, humidity, sound
level, weight etc etc. each of these requires a different sensor. just how
this sensor converts say weight, to electricity, is a story of its own, and
each sensor has this physics. It can be simple or complicated. But in the
end they convert their signals to something that can be sent down a wire, or
sent over a radio wave etc etc.
S. Ross
An electronic sensor is any device that uses electricity to sense a change
in something, and then through a voltage change, send a signal to a device
that captures this information. There are so many kinds of sensors, that
the parts, etc. would fill volumes.
Some examples are:
- microphones
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infrared detectors used in motion sensors
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video cameras
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Hall Effect probes (magnetic field)
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Siesmographs
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remote control devices
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photocells
Nathan A. Unterman
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Update: June 2012
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