Research on High-Precision, Low Cost Piezoresistive MEMS-Array Pressure Transmitters Based on Genetic Wavelet Neural Networks for Meteorological Measurements

This paper provides a novel and effective compensation method by improving the hardware design and software algorithm to achieve optimization of piezoresistive pressure sensors and corresponding measurement systems in order to measure pressure more accurately and stably, as well as to meet the application requirements of the meteorological industry. Specifically, GE NovaSensor MEMS piezoresistive pressure sensors within a thousandth of accuracy are selected to constitute an array. In the versatile compensation method, the hardware utilizes the array of MEMS pressure sensors to reduce random error caused by sensor creep, and the software adopts the data fusion technique based on the wavelet neural network (WNN) which is improved by genetic algorithm (GA) to analyze the data of sensors for the sake of obtaining accurate and complete information over the wide temperature and pressure ranges. The GA-WNN model is implemented in OPEN ACCESS Micromachines 2015, 6 555 hardware by using the 32-bit STMicroelectronics (STM32) microcontroller combined with an embedded real-time operating system μC/OS-II to make the output of the array of MEMS sensors be a direct digital readout. The results of calibration and test experiments clearly show that the GA-WNN technique can be effectively applied to minimize the sensor errors due to the temperature drift, the hysteresis effect and the long-term drift because of aging and environmental changes. The maximum error of the low cost piezoresistive MEMS-array pressure transmitter proposed by us is within 0.04% of its full-scale value, and it can satisfy the meteorological pressure measurement.