Self-Calibrating Capacitive Transducer for Determining Level of Fluent Materials
First Claim
1. A transducer for measuring a level of fluent material in a container, the transducer comprising:
- an electronics section having a touch-sensitive module with at least one port that normally receives and processing signals from a capacitive touch device; and
a probe section having at least one antenna probe connected to the at least one port, the antenna probe including an elongate electrical conductor and an insulating layer covering at least a portion of the electrical conductor;
wherein a change in detected capacitance of the at least one antenna probe is reflective of a change in level of the fluent material.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A capacitive transducer for detecting the level of liquids and other materials has one or more antenna probes connected to an integrated chip normally associated with touch-screen displays. Each antenna probe operates independently and senses the level condition of wet or dry flowable materials such as water, oil, fuel, grain, and so on. The antenna probes may be formed as insulated conductive wires or conductive traces between layers of a stiff or flexible substrate, such as a PCB, with the substrate material serving as the insulating layers. Each antenna probe has a different length representing different depths of the material being measured to provide dynamic calibration of the level condition independent of the material type and ambient conditions.
72 Citations
18 Claims
-
1. A transducer for measuring a level of fluent material in a container, the transducer comprising:
-
an electronics section having a touch-sensitive module with at least one port that normally receives and processing signals from a capacitive touch device; and a probe section having at least one antenna probe connected to the at least one port, the antenna probe including an elongate electrical conductor and an insulating layer covering at least a portion of the electrical conductor; wherein a change in detected capacitance of the at least one antenna probe is reflective of a change in level of the fluent material. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
-
-
11. A capacitive transducer for measuring a level of fluent material in a container, the transducer comprising:
-
a primary capacitive antenna probe comprising a first elongate electrical conductor having a first length and adapted to continuously measure material level; a secondary capacitive antenna probe comprising a second elongate electrical conductor having a second length shorter than the first length and an end tip positioned at a discrete measurement level, the end tip representing a trip point when reached by the material at the discrete measurement level to thereby dynamically calibrate the primary antenna probe. - View Dependent Claims (12)
-
-
13. A method of determining material level comprising:
-
providing a plurality of capacitive antenna probes with end tips at discrete positions representing different predetermined material levels; establishing a pre-calibrated capacitive reference value for each probe; reading a present capacitive value for each probe; determining the material level based on the present probe values and probe reference values; and performing a dynamic calibration after each reading to automatically compensate for variations in material properties and ambient conditions. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
-
Specification