Applications for ezpyro SMD+ pyroelectric sensor system

The ezPyro family delivers high sensitivity, fast response and switch-on, low power consumption, on-the-fly configurability, low component counts and easy integration. These benefits make the ezPyro SMD+ a solution for gas and for substance analysis with its thin-film pyroelectric sensors offering higher signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio per unit area and a large dynamic range (DR).

Being such a small sensor, the ezPyro range combines one or more pyroelectric sensor elements with a digital application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). The compact package delivers wavelength-specific sensing using factory configured optical filters integrated with configurable signal amplification, filtering, digitisation and power management.

The ezPyro SMD+ sensors offer thirty application-specific filter options for gases such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and other hydrocarbons, nitric oxide and refrigerants. Substance analysis includes foods such as fats, sugars, proteins and alcohol.

The integrated nature of the solution reduces system cost. The design cycle is accelerated further by using the industry-standard I2C serial interface and the capability of daisy-chaining multiple sensors, and development tools that allow plug-and-play connectivity to most microcontrollers. Hardware-based communication is less software-intensive and reduces the utilisation of microcontroller resources. Moreover, this integrated system ensures that rapid and easy system development.

The existing family of evaluation kits is compatible with the ezPyro SMD+ sensor family. New applications can be trialled using the ezPyro SMD prototyping system which supports up to four breakout boards. Sensor evaluation without software development is enabled by Pyreos PC software.

ezPyro, including the SMD+ range, is especially suitable for low power applications with a current consumption of 20 µA when fully activated and less than 1µA in the lowest power mode. The low power modes come with fast wake up times.

The infrared emitter is the main power consumer in an NDIR system. Fast response of ezPyro SMD+ pyroelectric sensors enables energy saving in NDIR gas measurement applications, as the sensor responds optimally to IR source pulses as short as 25ms. This is typically more than ten times shorter than a typical infrared bulb-based gas measurement.

For special applications, customers can test their own customised filters on the ezPyro ePY12121 (2.2 um long pass filter) or ePY12111 (5.0 um long pass filter).

Pyreos ezPyro SMD+ is being trialled by several global corporates for applications which have not yet been announced.