Automated V-I Characterization of Electronic Devices Using Arduino Board

Abstract

Characterization of electronic devices is one of the main objectives in an electronics lab, where the data from lab measurements are compared with that of theoretical predictions. This can ensure detection of faulty electronic devices before connecting them in a bigger circuitry. On the other hand, manually taking repetitive measurements using power supplies and multimeters at various operating points of a given device can be laborious, especially when many such devices has to be tested. In this paper we present a fully automated Arduino based system which does not use any external instruments other than power supplies. Once an electronic device is positioned and appropriate modes are chosen, the system will plot its required characteristics and extract parameters on an excel sheet in a serially interfaced PC. We have successfully carried out the fully automated V-I characterization of a diode, transfer and output characteristics of a MOSFET and the input and output characteristics of a BJT. The individual circuits and their associated scripts are combined using device selection switches for better utilization of system resources.