Digital interfaced thermopiles in a horizon detection application

Robin Lilja School of Innovation, Design and Technology Mlardalen University, Sweden a rla06001@student.mdh.se January 9, 2009

Abstract The MLX90614 infrared thermopile sensor has been used in a sensor system to detect the horizon by measurements of the thermal radiation emitted from the Earths surface and the sky. The projects intension was to analyze and determine the intended future work of integrating the system with a ying platform, in the purpose of measure and control its attitude during ight.

Contents
1 Introduction 2 Background 3 Theory 3.1 Atmospheric windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Horizon detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 The MLX90614 thermopile sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Implementation 5 Results 6 Discussion and conclusions 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 6 7

Introduction

The problem regarding the attitude1 measurements of aircrafts and spacecrafts has been a subject of dierent solutions, traditionally solved by gyroscopes and accelerometers. During the 1960s NASA purposed a solution where the infrared signature of a planets thermal radiation in respect of the interstellar space temperature (3.1 kelvin) would be used for nding a horizon reference [1]. Later on it was found, that the infrared emission from carbon oxide gas, which is peaking at a 15 microns wavelength, where appropriate as an atmospherically infrared signature in applications regarding the planet Earth. The carbon oxides infrared emission has proven to be rather constant throughout the planet, irrespective of seasons and latitude [2, 3]. Nowadays the technique is commonly used, and has even been adapted to work within the Earth atmosphere. The development of sensors and electronics has made the technique available to the hobbyist, and are used in both commercial airframe stabilization products and open source UAV projects. Maybe the toughest environment where the technique has been used successfully on the planet is in the Arctic, onboard a small UAV [4]. The most commonly used sensor is an analogue infrared thermopile sensor, commonly used in application of non-contact temperature measurements.

Background

The main factor behind this project done in a sensor technique course is the authors personal interest in UAV2 development. The author has observed a trend, where former analog interfaced sensors have been equipped with digital bus interfaces, enabling local ADC3 and powerful DSP4 within the sensors package. Such sensor is believed to ease the CPU utilization of the main controller and reduce the need of external components. Factors that are implying reduced costs and weight, which is especially important in aeronautic applications. In the case of the MLX90614, it is available to the same price as its analog counterpart, making it interesting even for the UAV hobbyist.

1 Orientation 2 Unmanned

of an aircraft/spacecraft in respect of the horizon. Aerial Vehicle, an autonomous or remotely controlled aircraft. 3 Analog-to-Digital Converter 4 Digital Signal Processing

3
3.1

Theory
Atmospheric windows

Since the method NASA uses intends to operate outside a planets atmosphere, it was not much of a problem nding the cold reference. Instead they needed to nd a suitable source for the hot reference. Within the Earths atmosphere the challenge is somewhat the other way around. The greenhouse gases in the Earths atmosphere absorb and emit electromagnetic radiation, working in the analogy of a transceiver. Still there are bands in the spectra, consisting of wavelengths where no radiation is absorbed nor emitted. Such band is called an atmospheric window, a window where the atmosphere is silent and has a high transmittance. In this application of interest, there is a window occurring in the band of 8 to 14 microns, known as the LWIR5 band. That band does also comprise the wavelengths of the blackbody radiation in temperature ranges commonly found on the Earths surface. In other words, using a thermopile sensor detecting infrared radiation in the LWIR-band will enable the measurement of the emitted thermal radiation, both from the Earths surface and interstellar space. Implying that the Earths surface temperature always will be warmer than the temperature registered in the sky.

Figure 1: Electromagnetic transmittance of the Earths atmosphere, with the LWIR band illustrated.

5 Long-wave

infrared

3.2

Horizon detection

In order to measure the attitude in one axis, the following assumptions are needed to be considered. That two thermopile sensors oriented 180 degrees apart from each others, orthogonal to the axis of interest, should register the same amount of emission when they are positioned horizontally. When having any displacement from the horizontal position, one of the sensors will see more of the warmer earth, and the other sensor more of the colder sky, resulting in a temperature dierence correlating to the attitude. Implicitly it is interpreted that objects, such as e. g. buildings, occurring in the sensors eld of view will disturb the system. An eect which will have less inuence by using sensors with wide eld of view, since the object occurs relative smaller. The weather will also aect the system, especially clouds and fog. Indications have been made that at least a two degrees temperature dierence is needed between the zenith and nadir, in order to obtain a fully operational system [7]. It is therefore necessary to calibrate the system during usage (at least before), since both the Earths surface emissivity and weather can vary in time and position. According to [7] the average temperature sensed by a thermopile in this application can approximately be calculated by 1, where is degrees of seen sky, degrees of seen ground and FOV the sensors eld of view. This function will be used as a theoretical reference during the measurements. Tavrage = Tzenith + Tnadir F OV (1)

3.3

The MLX90614 thermopile sensor

The thermopile sensor is composed of a set of thermocouples, and is therefore working accordingly the principles of the thermoelectric eect. Saying that any conductor exposed by a temperature dierence will experience a voltage dierence between two points, enabling a proportional relationship between temperature and voltage. Important to notice, is that the voltage dierence introduced by the temperature dierence is proportional to the actual dierence in temperature of the conductor, not the absolute temperature. In the case of the MLX90614 sensor, it uses an in-package resistive temperature sensor, providing an absolute temperature reference to relate to. Therefore it is crucial for the sensor accuracy that the sensor is in a thermal equilibrium, and must not be mounted near components generating temperature uctuations. Since the purpose of a thermopile sensor is to measure an objects surface temperature, without having a physical contact. A band-pass lter is demanded for proper functionality, making the sensor sensitive to just the wavelengths of interest. The MLX90614 is therefore equipped with a silicon pass-band lter, letting infrared radiation between 5.5 to 14 microns wavelength6 reach the thermopile element.
6 Still

not a perfect match of the LWIR band used in this particular application.

The voltage dierence introduced by the thermocouple eect is amplied and analogue to digital converted with 17-bits resolution. Digital signal processing is applied, utilizing digital ltering of the measurements. The sensors digital interface permits alternation of lter and temperature calculation parameters such as the emissivity constant. This feature enables the user to tune the sensor for special purposes or to be optimal in a specic application. The digital interface of the MLX90614 is a two wire serial bus, namely the SMBus7 . The bus consists of a master device and up to 127 addressable slave devices, communicating with a bandwidth up to 100 kHz8 [5].

Figure 2: Block schematic diagram of the MLX90614 thermopile sensors design.

Implementation

The purpose of the test system is to determine whether the MLX90614 can be used to detect the horizon, for simplicity the test has been taking place out of a buildings window, from a height of approximately 15 meters. A rig has been constructed, consisting of an aluminium bar with a servo in one of its ends, holding the sensor board. By alternating the rotation of the servo, the alignment of the sensors in respect of the horizon can be adjusted. Enabling the ability to relate the sensors measured temperatures to a specic angle. The rig allowed the sensor board to be placed one meter away from the building, which will be a subject for further discussion.

Management Bus SMBus is easily confused to be completely compatible with the I2C bus, a standard allowing a higher bandwidth, making the SMBus devices behaviour non-consistent.
8 The

7 System

Figure 3: The sensor system board with two MLX90614 thermopiles mounted, enabling measurements around one axis. In gure 3 the sensor board can be viewed, a straight forward construction with few additional components. The pin header connects the board to the SMBus and the power supply, making the board easily mountable since very little cabling is required. The 90 degrees eld of view model of the MLX90614 series where used with factory default lter settings. Using factory default lter settings correlate to a sensor bandwidth of 10 Hz. According to the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem a sampling frequency greater than 20 Hz must be used, at a minimum. An ATMega168 microcontroller where used for interfacing the sensor systems bus with a computer, logging the measurements, through a standard RS232 serial communication interface.

Results

The measurement where made during a weather condition (dens low altitude clouds with snow, light snow cover on ground) making the temperature dierence between zenith and nadir approximately at one degree Celsius. One of the sensors had the occurrence of two 30 meters high buildings in its eld of view, approximately 150 meters away, blocking portions of the horizon.

Figure 4: Measured and theoretical temperature dierence between sensors as function of angle.

Figure 5: Measured temperature dierence and servo position as function of time.

Discussion and conclusions

According the gure 4, a somewhat linear relation between the angle and temperature dierence could be interpreted, what must be considered is the narrow temperature dierence. A measurement done in a weather condition allowing a greater signal to noise ratio, would probably cause a more distinct linear relation. Another reason to the narrow temperature dierence is surely the proximity of the building, adding (despite the angle) signicant amount of radiation detected by the sensors. The step in the forth quadrant of gure 4 can originate from the buildings disturbing the horizon, or any irregularities in the radiation from the wall of the building where the measurements where made from. Regarding the system performance in respect of the environment where the measurements where made, it performed pretty well. What must be considered in the application of measuring and controlling an airframes attitude, is that in a realistic situation this environment would not be suitable for a ying vehicle. Instead would it probably operate in a relatively open environment, in safe distance from buildings and trees, an environment where the system is believed to perform essentially better. Another consideration to account for is the bandwidth of the sensor system. The system allowed a bandwidth of 10 Hz, a relatively low bandwidth which is believed to call the need of a stable and natural damped airframe. Such airframe could e. g. be a high wing low speed construction, a design commonly occurring in small UAV systems. Further measurements like the one illustrated by gure 5 will help to conclude maximum angular speed ratings of the airframes axels. This is obtained by observing the phase shift between the position and temperature. A too high phase shift will have a major impact on a regulator stabilizing the airframe, and can cause unwanted properties such as oscillations, fatal to its purpose.

References
[1] Germann, E. F., Jr.; Hatcher, N. M. TN D-1005 STUDY OF A PROPOSED INFRARED HORIZON SCANNER FOR USE IN SPACE-ORIENTATION CONTROL SYSTEMS, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, USA, 1962. NASA. [2] Davis, R. E.; Hinton, D. E.; Jalink, A., Jr. TN D-4654 Radiometric measurements of the earths infrared horizon from the X-15 in three spectral intervals, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, USA, 1968. NASA. [3] Jalink, A., Jr.; Davis, R. E.; Dodgen, J. A. TN D-6616 Conceptual design and analysis of an infared horizon sensor with compensation for atmospheric variability, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, USA, 1972. NASA. [4] Rob Coppinger. COTS UAV makes arctic debut, 2008. Flightglobal. www.ightglobal.com/articles/2008/04/03/222680/cots-uav-makes-arcticdebut.html [5] The System Management Interface Forum. www.smbus.org [6] Melexis. IR sensor thermometer MLX90614 Datasheet, 2008. Melexis. www.melexis.com/Assets/IR sensor thermometer MLX90614 Datasheet 5152.aspx [7] B. Taylor C. Bil S. Watkins G. Egan. Horizon Sensing Attitude Stabilisation: A VMC Autopilot, 2003. RMIT University, Monash University. Melbourne, Australia. www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/horizon sensing autopilot.pdf