Abstract
Capacitive sensor systems are potentially highly energy efficient. In practice, however, their energy consumption is typically dominated by that of the interface circuit that digitizes the sensor capacitance. Energy-efficient capacitive sensor interfaces are therefore a prerequisite for the successful application of capacitive sensors in energy-constrained applications, such as battery-powered devices and wireless sensor nodes. This chapter derives lower bounds on the energy consumption of capacitive sensor interfaces. A comparison of these bounds with the state-of-the-art suggests that there is significant room for improvement. Several approaches to improving energy efficiency are discussed and illustrated by two design examples.
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Pertijs, M.A.P., Tan, Z. (2013). Energy-Efficient Capacitive Sensor Interfaces. In: van Roermund, A., Baschirotto, A., Steyaert, M. (eds) Nyquist AD Converters, Sensor Interfaces, and Robustness. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4587-6_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4587-6_8
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