At present,intelligent sensorWe are in a new era of vigorous development, with new technologies constantly emerging and new products constantly emerging. According to the latest forecast made by the Optoelectronic Industry Development Association (OIDA), the international market sales volume of smart sensors will grow at a high rate of 20% per year from 2003 to 2006. This will undoubtedly drive the rapid development of the information industry. The development direction of modern sensors is single-chip integration, intelligence, networking, and systematization. This chapter first introduces the basic characteristics and development trends of intelligent sensors, and then elaborates on their product classification and main technical indicators.

The national standard for "General Terminology of Sensors" (GB 7665-87) formulated by our country defines a sensor/transducer as "a device or apparatus that can sense a specified measured object and convert it into a usable output signal according to certain rules". This indicates that sensors have the following meanings: firstly, they are a detection device composed of sensitive elements and conversion elements, which can not only sense the measured information but also detect the sensed information; Secondly, it can convert the measured data into electrical signals and other output forms according to certain rules to meet the needs of information transmission, processing, storage, display, recording, and control; Thirdly,sensorThere is a definite relationship between the output and input, and it can achieve certain measurement accuracy, linearity, and sensitivity indicators.

At present, the Chinese and English terms for smart sensors have not been fully unified. The British call intelligent sensors "intelligent sensor"; Americans are accustomed tointelligent sensorIt is called a "Smart Sensor", which literally means "a nimble and intelligent sensor".

so-calledintelligent sensorIt is a sensor with a microprocessor and both information detection and processing functions. The biggest feature of intelligent sensors is the organic integration of the sensor's information detection function with the microprocessor's information processing function. In a sense, it has a function similar to artificial intelligence. It should be pointed out that the term "with microprocessor" here includes two situations: one is to integrate sensors and microprocessors on a single chip to form the so-called“ Single chip intelligent sensor”; Another type refers to sensors that can be paired with microprocessors. Obviously, the latter has a broader definition, but both belong to the category of intelligent sensors.