Air quality monitoring – EBV’s XENSIV™ PAS sensor evaluation shield
Exploring ways to cost-effectively maintain air quality
As part of efforts to make both working and household environments more comfortable and healthier to be located in, there is a growing need to have information on the air quality - i.e. CO2 levels. In situations where these are too high, residents and office workers will become sleepy, or struggle to focus on the tasks they are doing.
Essentially, there are two reasons that this happens (or it could possibly be a combination of both). These are:
- The air conditioning/ventilation that is being applied to that area of the building is insufficient and its intensity needs to be increased.
- There are an excessive number of people present in the area at that time.
- As well as the build-up CO2, poor ventilation or overcrowding in buildings will also increase the potential for airborne infections to be passed between occupants. CO2 monitoring can therefore be used to give an indication of the likelihood of such issues occurring - adding a valuable health and safety aspect to its function. It should be noted, however, that these monitoring be done while simultaneously keeping down the operational expenses involved and curbing the associated environmental impact.
- By accessing data captured on the CO2 levels, the building management system will be able to make operational adjustments accordingly. If there are many people in a particular area at that time (causing the amounts of ambient CO2 to be high), then the intensity of the air conditioning would be increased. At other times, when just a few people were present, the air conditioning could be turned down - allowing money to be saved and curbing the related carbon emissions.
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XENSIV™ PAS CO2 Sensor
Use Infineon’s XENSIV™ PAS CO2 sensor to track the environment you are in – for improved health, productivity and overall well-being.
EBV IoT – IoTConnect Cloud Platform
This horizontal IoT platform allows for device communication and management, data storage, app creation as well as enablement and robust security protocols.
EBV & Infineon Webinar: PAS CO2 Evaluation Shield
To assist customers looking to implement the XENSIV™ PAS CO2 sensor module into their air quality monitoring solutions, EBV Elektronik has introduced a supporting EBV-IoT – PAS CO2 Evaluation Shield in Arduino Uno compatible format.
EBV IoT - Infineon PAS CO2 Evaluation Shield
The EBV-IoT – Infineon PAS CO2 Evaluation Shield is a quick evaluation tool based on the Infineon PAS CO2 and DPS310 barometric sensors in the Arduino header. It enables a quick exploration of the most recent CO2 sensor.
Infineon’s XENSIV™ PAS CO2 sensor module available from EBV
EBV now offers a PAS solution that will facilitate more widespread CO2 monitoring. As well as being suitable for integration into air conditioning units, this technology is also applicable for use in smart thermostats and standalone monitoring equipment.
Based on picking up sound resulting from the expansion of targeted gas molecules after they have been excited by flashes of infrared (IR) radiation, photo-acoustic spectroscopy (PAS) offers a very effective means via which to measure the CO2 content in air. This technique has key advantages over alternative gas sensing methods. Among these are:
- Requiring only a relatively small amount of energy,
- Fitting into a compact form factor,
- Being inexpensive, so not contributing too heavily to system component costs,
- Having more rapid responsiveness than most other methods,
- Offering greater accuracy than certain other methods,
- As minimal sensor drift is witnessed, periodic calibration can be avoided.
Infineon’s XENSIV™ PAS CO2 sensor module is highly compact (measuring 14mm x 13.8mm x 7.5mm). Being recognised as the smallest PAS sensor module currently on the market, it can fit into even the most space limited of application settings. This module attains ±3% accuracy when determining CO2 concentrations, benefiting from sophisticated compensation algorithms that mitigate effects which would otherwise impact on this. It has a CO2 measurement range that spans from 0ppm to 10,000ppm.
EBV’s XENSIV™ PAS CO2 sensor evaluation shield
To support customer implementation of this XENSIV™ module, EBV offers a comprehensive evaluation shield based on this technology. Alongside the CO2 sensor module, this board features Infineon pressure and temperature sensing devices. These help with compensation of fluctuations in ambient conditions, so as to enhance accuracy. A 12V power conversion circuit is included, as well as a broad array of different serial communication interfaces.
As well as being used in isolation, the EBV shield can be connected to Arduino for conducting evaluation work on the customer’s selected microcontroller/microprocessor platform - with access to a highly portable Infineon library meaning that this shield is compatible with a wide variety of different platforms. If they wish, customers can use the break-away board, enabling direct incorporation into other electronic systems. As an extension, WLAN and cellular IoT connectivity options can be chosen from.
Samples of the EBV-IoT - Infineon XENSIV™ PAS CO2 sensor evaluation shield are available from EBV. Please click here to enquire about receiving one.
Complete multifaceted plug-and-play solution
Collaboration between EBV and Infineon has resulted in a convenient way for customers to add CO2 monitoring capabilities to their products - whether it is upgrading existing equipment designs, or for utilisation in brand new items. The modular nature of the evaluation board allows it to be applied to a wide variety of different prospective contexts. Availability of libraries and cloud connectivity services ease system integration - from both a hardware and a software perspective. Furthermore, since regular recalibration work is not needed, the sensor technology can be considered as being fit-and-forget.
Beyond measurement
Thanks to EBV's IoTConnect™ cloud platform, it is possible for benefits associated with cloud connectivity to be brought to the CO2 monitoring systems that customers develop. From the data compiled, there will then be the opportunity for more in-depth analysis to be undertaken (allowing any patterns emerging to be pinpointed and steps taken to address them).
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