Design and implementation of a low cost particulate material transducer

This work presents the design, implementation, calibration and test of a transducer system for Particle Material - PM based on the sensor GP2Y1010. This sensor is the principal element of many commercial PM transducers, but its sensitivity for environmental perturbations (such as humidity, temperature, etc.) implies the using of complex instrumentation circuits which increases the final price of this product. In this work is proposed a low cost PM transducer, the main characteristics of its instrumentation circuit are detailed. The characteristics of the proposed transducer such as resolution, precision, range of measurement, temperature operation are near among of the characteristics of commercial transducers. The purpose of this transducer is the monitoring of particle material due to mining activity around the Arequipa city, since the particle material concentration out of permissible range is a potential risk for the public health, in this sense the measurement with a reliable and low cost device is a challenging task.