Electrical Transducer: Types, Working and Its Advantages

 A Transducer is a device that converts variations into a measurable physical quantity i.e., pressure into Electrical signals or the other way round. Strain Gauge, Hydraulic and Pneumatic are the commonly used Transducers. Strain Gauge is the used in numerous industries like Automobile, Medical and Weighing etc. Load cells are also a type of force Transducer. The process of converting forces into electrical signals is called Transduction.

 

An electrical transducer is a kind of transducer which gives electrical energy as an output. It converts any type of energy into an electrical signal. The energy input may be heat, light, or sound and the electrical signal can be frequency, current or voltage. These signals production can depend on the effects of resistive, capacitive and inductive. The nonelectrical quantities can be measured by using a detector which changes the physical quantity to a displacement to activate the transducer.

 

Types of Electrical Transducer

These transducers are classified into three different categories:

1). Active Transducer

This kind of transducer generates their voltage or current signal. The required energy for output signal production can be attained from the energy required for the production of this output signal is obtained from the physical occurrence being calculated. The best examples of active transducers are a thermocouple, PV cell, piezoelectric transducer, photoelectric cell, moving coil generator, etc.

 

2). Passive Transducer

It is also known as an externally power-driven transducer. The required power for energy change is derived through an exterior power source. Additionally, these transducers are classified into resistive, capacitive and inductive. The resistive type mainly includes a thermistor, resistance strain gauge, and photoconductive cell. The inductive type includes LVDT and capacitance includes photo-emissive and the devices which are based on Hall Effect.

 

3). Optoelectronic Transducers

Optoelectronic transducers use the principle of converting the energy from light to electrical. Some of the examples of optoelectronic transducers are a photoconductive cell, photovoltaic cell, solar cell, photomultiplier tube, and photomultiplier.

Advantages

·         Diminution can be easily done.

·         Friction effects can be reduced.

·         The output can simple be applied to transmit as well as process the measurement.

·         The o/p can be specified & recorded remotely at a distance from the sensing medium.

·         The data transmission through mechanical means is eliminated. Thus no mechanical wear and tear and no possibility of mechanical failures exist.

·         The reduce effects of mass inertia problems.

·         The signal can be mixed to get any permutation with outputs of related transducers otherwise control signals.

·         Mass inactivity effects can be reduced.

·         The system can be managed with a lower power level.

 

Disadvantages

·         The electrical transducer is expensive.

The effects of ageing and drifts of parameters of active components must be considered while designing the circuit, thus complicating the process.