An IoT-Enabled Ground Loop Detection System: Design, Implementation and Testing

Abstract

The ground loop is a solemn problem in complex environments including laboratories and industries. In particular, it creates spurious signals, which interfere with low-level signals of instrumentation, and often imperil the human community. Manual ground loop detection is inefficient and requires more diagnosis time. As such, automatic ground loop detection is demanding although it is still a complex task in an environment of massive instruments. In this paper, we exploit the Internet of Things (IoT) technology to present a novel ground loop detection system to cope with such a difficult scenario. Specifically, the proposed scheme comprises an exciter block along with the IoT device to generate up to 100[Formula: see text]kHz ground loop current, and a detector module to regulate the affected cable by receiving the test current. We also use multiple detectors to give a virtual cable identity (ID) number in a complex area for recognizing the faulty cable accurately. After detecting the ground loop, the affected cable ID number is sent to the server for immediate action for prevention through the use of a smartphone (Android) application and website. The test results clarify the superiority of the proposed ground loop detection scheme in terms of accuracy, dependency and robustness.