Embedded systems and sensors are perfect combinations that are working seamlessly in many applications. Sensing technology is evolving at a very fast pace with miniaturisation of microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other modules. Sensing technology plays an important role in many embedded systems.
There is a wide variety of sensors available for an embedded application to choose from. The most common/ popular types of sensors interfaced with embedded systems include temperature, pressure, humidity, motion, infrared (IR), ultrasonic, Bluetooth, Internet of Things (IoT), among others.
Modern embedded systems are often based on microcontrollers. Sensors are either inbuilt or interfaced with I/O pins of microcontrollers. For example, microcontrollers like MSP430F6723 and MSP430F2013 have inbuilt temperature sensors. The sensor input is read by the microcontroller, processed, and the output data is displayed on output display devices such as LCDs, OLEDs, 7-segment LEDs connected to the microcontroller.
There are also different types of embedded sensors (embedded systems with sensors) available in the market. These sensors are actually part of embedded systems that interact with the surrounding environment.
With modern sensors and software components, embedded sensors are an active and growing area of embedded computing. For example, MICA2 Mote is a popular wireless network embedded sensor module. It supports 868/916MHz, 433/315MHz multi-channel transceivers with extended range. It can be interfaced with different sensors to measure light, temperature, RH, barometric pressure, acceleration/seismic, acoustic, magnetic, and other parameters.
