Detection Circuit Research Articles

Improving the accuracy of insulation resistance measurements of a single arm unbalanced bridge using a parameter matching design and filtering algorithm for battery packs used in electric ships

In the DC system of electric ships, insulation drops and grounding will pose a threat to stable ship operation and personal safety. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the insulation status of the battery pack between high voltage and ground in real time. However, traditional measurement methods have problems such as low accuracy, long measurement time, and poor reliability. In this paper, an insulation detection method based on an unbalanced bridge was proposed and the principle of insulation resistance detection was analyzed. The influence of different resistance values of insulation detection circuits on the measurement error of insulation resistance was studied by simulation analysis and experimental tests to obtain the optimal set of bridge resistance matching designs. Digital filter and Kalman filter were used to filter out noise in the voltage signal. The results show that measurement error of insulation resistance after optimization was less than 3% and drops to approximately 0.46% after processing by the Kalman filter algorithm, which proves that the insulation detection method designed in this paper has high measurement accuracy.

Gradual-N-Justification (GNJ) to Reduce False-Positive Hardware Trojan Detection in Gate-Level Netlist

The integrated circuit design flow is highly susceptible to hardware Trojan (HT) insertion. While there have been significant efforts to detect HTs, techniques usually demand a golden model, suffer limited scalability, or experience high false positives. This article introduced a new technique called gradual-N-justification (GNJ) to reduce false-positives HT detection in the gate-level netlist. The GNJ technique combines the signal justification and unsupervised K-means machine learning (ML) algorithm. The GNJ technique is a general technique that can be applied to a set of reported suspicious signals (SSs) in order to identify the most SSs and reduce false-positive rates (FPRs) in detecting HTs. The GNJ technique is applied to 60 different combinations of full-scan and partial-scan circuits and hard-to-detect combinational HTs. To realize valid and hard-to-detect HTs, a configurable HT insertion platform is developed. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, it is for the first time that an extensive evaluation of partial-scan circuits for HT detection at the gate level is being performed. The comprehensive results on both full- and partial-scan circuits have shown that the GNJ technique is highly scalable as it presents a linear relationship between the number of SSs and the execution time of GNJ. Furthermore, the GNJ technique does not miss an HT circuit if exists. The GNJ technique offers an FPR as low as 3.89% for full-scan circuits and 3.31% for partial-scan circuits on average.

A Proposed On-Die Oscilloscope for Monitoring of Power Noise Waveform Inside IC Due to Transient Stress Events

An on-die oscilloscope circuit is proposed to monitor the power noise waveforms inside IC due to the transient stress events for a more complete analysis of the effects of the transient stress events on the electronic systems. When the transient stress event occurs, the induced noise voltage waveform in the power supply is sampled and converted to digital data in real time. A trigger signal created by the event detector circuit is used to hold the digital data. The stored digital data inside the on-die oscilloscope are reconstructed back to the analog noise waveform based on the sampling process. The operation of each circuit block in the on-die oscilloscope is analyzed and validated by simulation and measurement results. The approximate bandwidth of the proposed on-die oscilloscope is extracted from simulation results. The power noise waveforms due to the transmission line pulse events and electrostatic discharge events are measured with an external oscilloscope instrument using cables and directly sampled and reconstructed by the on-die oscilloscope, and these measured and reconstructed analog noise waveforms are compared with each other.

Electrical Rain Detector Using Arduino Uno with LCD and Buzzer

This work focuses on using rain sensor, and it can be used in both everyday life and manufacturing. The ultimate goal of this project is to detect rain using a rain sensor. It works like a timer, sending a pulse as its signal, which is then read the buzzer. Water conservation and good use are important. Here is a simple project that will sound an alarm when it rains, allowing us to take action to gather rainwater and store it for later use. We can increase the groundwater level with the aid of Underwater recharge technologies by saving this rainwater and Using it. When the rain detector senses rain, it sounds an alarm. The desired result was achieved in various aspects of using rain water detectors in irrigation, home automation, electronics, vehicles, and other fields. Here is a low-cost rainwater detector circuit that is simple and effective.

Design and optimization of E. coli artificial genetic circuits for detection of explosive composition 2,4-dinitrotoluene

The detection of mine-based explosives poses a serious threat to the lives of deminers, and carcinogenic residues may cause severe environmental pollution. Whole-cell biosensors that can detect on-site in dangerous or inaccessible environments have great potential to replace conventional methods. Synthetic biology based on engineering modularity serves as a new tool that could be used to engineer microbes to acquire desired functions through artificial design and precise regulation. In this study, we designed artificial genetic circuits in Escherichia coli MG1655 by reconstructing the transcription factor YhaJ-based system to detect explosive composition 2,4-dinitrotoluene (2,4-DNT). These genetic circuits were optimized at the transcriptional, translational, and post-translational levels. The binding affinity of the transcription factor YhaJ with inducer 2,4-DNT metabolites was enhanced via directed evolution, and several activator binding sites were inserted in sensing yqjF promoter (PyqjF) to further improve the output level. The optimized biosensor PyqjF×2-TEV-(mYhaJ + GFP)-Ssr had a maximum induction ratio of 189 with green fluorescent signal output, and it could perceive at least 1 μg/mL 2,4-DNT. Its effective and robust performance was verified in different water samples. Our results demonstrate the use of synthetic biology tools to systematically optimize the performance of sensors for 2,4-DNT detection, that lay the foundation for practical applications.

A Fourier-domain-based line shape recovery method used in direct absorption spectroscopy

A novel absorption line shape recovery method with self-calibration function and ultra-easy implementation was introduced to direct absorption spectroscopy (DAS) in this study. The self-calibration function empowered the DAS system with the immunity to the laser power fluctuations. The ultra-easy implementation was achieved in that the DAS system was substantially simplified with a single-path DAS rather than the traditional dual-path differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS), and the absorption profile can be directly recovered by an analog or digital filter instead of complex fitting algorithm or sophisticated balance detection circuits. The reliability and self-calibration characteristic of the new method were validated using CH4 transition at 1653.72 nm, where the line strength is 1.45×10-21cm/molec. The Voigt fitting residual and signal to noise ratio were optimized in detail and compared with the DOAS.

Design and analysis of 28 GHz CMOS low power LNA with 6.4 dB gain variability for 5G applications

AbstractA 28 GHz two stage low noise amplifier (LNA) is proposed with envelope detection technique for power reduction (21.62%) and tunable negative feedback capacitor for gain variation in 40 nm CMOS technology. The envelope detection circuit turn‐on the second half of the LNA by the RF signal input received at the first stage. The default gain is increased (31.53%) by the tunable negative feedback capacitor circuit of the LNA with the control voltage from 0 to 1 V. In addition, 6.22 GHz of bandwidth is achieved with the tunable gain from 20.3 dB to 26.7 dB. The first stage of the LNA is designed with the inductive source degeneration for the noise reduction, and the multiple‐gate topology is involved in the second stage to improve the linearity. The third‐order input intercept point and the noise figure of the LNA are −7 dBm and 2.86 dB, respectively. When the second stage is turned‐on and turned‐off the LNA consumes 7.4 mW and 5.8 mW of power, respectively, from the 1 V supply. The proposed LNA requires 0.19 mm2 of core area. The performance of the LNA under process corner variation and temperature variation are analyzed.

Printed flexible capacitive humidity sensors for field application

A new type of printed capacitive humidity sensors with stacked parallel-plate electrodes is presented in this work. The high capacitance and high sensitivity associated with this type of sensors allow the use of low-cost electronic circuits for detection. The use of a polymer sensing material with extremely low hysteresis and a grid top electrode design ensures the sensor’s stable performance and rapid response to humidity changes. Our study shows that the sensor performance can be significantly improved through printing processes and the performance is affected by environment temperature through its influence on water sorption in the sensing material. The temperature effect on the sensors was investigated in detail and the sorption heat of water molecules in the sensing material was estimated. The printed sensor was attached to a printed circuit board (PCB) to become a standalone and functional sensing unit. The PCB board is equipped with light energy harvesting, capacitance measurement, and wireless data transmission, as well as the calibration capability for converting measured capacitance to relative humidity. The obtained unit met the needs for application in high performance building management.

Orthogonal Amplification Circuits Composed of Acyclic Nucleic Acids Enable RNA Detection.

Construction of complex DNA circuits is difficult due to unintended hybridization and degradation by enzymes under biological conditions. We herein report a hybridization chain reaction (HCR) circuit composed of left-handed acyclic d-threoninol nucleic acid (d-aTNA), which is orthogonal to right-handed DNA and RNA. Because of its high thermal stability, use of an aTNA hairpin with a short 7 base-pair stem ensured clear ON-OFF control of the HCR circuit. The aTNA circuit was stable against nucleases. A circuit based on right-handed acyclic l-threoninol nucleic acid (l-aTNA) was also designed, and high orthogonality between d- and l-aTNA HCRs was confirmed by activation of each aTNA HCR via a corresponding input strand. A dual OR logic gate was successfully established using serinol nucleic acid (SNA), which could initiate both d- and l-aTNA circuits. The d-aTNA HCR was used for an RNA-dependent signal amplification system via the SNA interface. The design resulted in 80% yield of the cascade reaction in 3000 s without a significant leak. This work represents the first example of use of heterochiral HCR circuits for detection of RNA molecules. The method has potential for direct visualization of RNA in vivo and the FISH method.

An Isothermal Autocatalytic Hybridization Reaction Circuit for Sensitive Detection of DNA Methyltransferase and Inhibitors Assay.

Abnormal DNA methylation contributes to the annoying tumorigenesis and the elevated expression of methylation-related methyltransferase (MTase) is associated with many diseases. Hence DNA MTase could serve as a promising biomarker for cancer-specific diagnosis as well as a potential therapeutic target. Herein, we developed an isothermal autocatalytic hybridization reaction (AHR) circuit for the sensitive detection of MTase and its inhibitors by integrating the catalytic hairpin assembly (CHA) converter with the hybridization chain reaction (HCR) amplifier. The initiator-mediated HCR amplifier could generate amplified fluorescent readout, as well as numerous newly activated triggers for motivating the CHA converter. The CHA converter is designed to expose the identical sequence of HCR initiators that reversely powered the HCR amplifier. Thus, the trace amount of target could produce exponentially amplified fluorescent readout by the autocatalytic feedback cycle between HCR and CHA systems. Then an auxiliary hairpin was introduced to mediate the assay of Dam MTase via the well-established AHR circuit. The Dam MTase-catalyzed methylation of auxiliary hairpin leads to its subsequent efficient cleavage by DpnI endonuclease, thus resulting in the release of HCR initiators to initiate the AHR circuit. The programmable nature of the auxiliary hairpin allows its easy adaption into other MTase assay by simply changing the recognition site. This proposed AHR circuit permits a sensitive, robust, and versatile analysis of MTase with the limit of detection (LOD) of 0.011 U/mL. Lastly, the AHR circuit could be utilized for MTase analysis in real complex samples and for evaluating the cell-cycle-dependent expression of MTase. This developed MTase-sensing strategy holds promising potential for biomedical analysis and clinical diagnosis.

Design of the Front-End Electronics for Silicon Beam Profilometer Prototype for Light Ions at the BM@N Experiment

Baryonic matter at nuclotron (BM@N) is the fixed-target experiment at the Nuclotron based Ion Collider fAcility (NICA) complex [the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Dubna]. Two beam profilometer planes will be placed inside the beam pipe and used for a beam tuning during the initial stage in the BM@N experiment. According to the physics program of the experiment, beam ions are foreseen from carbon to gold. Due to the wide input charge range, two versions of front-end electronics (FEEs) for the beam profilometer will be used—for light and heavy ions. The article presents the first stage of a beam profilometer development—the design of a prototype for light ions based on a double-sided silicon strip detector and FEE application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

A Miniaturized and Ultra-Low-Power Tamper Detection Sensor for Portable Applications

This article presents a tamper detection sensor complementing cryptographic techniques in order to protect data from unauthorized access and/or from data falsification. Both the mechanical and electronic parts of the systems are described. The proposed architecture targets portable devices and can be realized using commercially available components, widely available materials and known manufacturing and assembly techniques. The tamper detection circuit is based on a capacitive sensing principle and uses ultra-low-power electronic components, leading to an overall consumed current below <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$10~\mu \text{A}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> . Autonomy is a crucial reported drawback of miniaturized battery backed-up anti-tampering hardware systems: the presented architecture and implementation ensures a lifetime of at least 3 years when powered by one CR2032 coin cell battery. The paper also assesses the sensitivity of the tamper detection: measurements show that the system is able to detect a variation of at least one percent of the capacitance of the tamper layer, resulting from an attempt to breach the outer shell surrounding the circuit for accessing the sensitive data.

A Novel DC Distance Relay for MVDC Microgrids

Detecting faults in DC microgrids faces numerous challenges in terms of fast detection requirements, sensitivity against low- and high-resistance faults, and selectivity. This paper proposes a novel local-measurement-based DC distance relay for DC microgrids that addresses these challenges. The relay’s power circuit integrates an inductor at the end of each line. Additionally, it employs auxiliary components with a peak detection circuit (PDC) for capturing and processing different waveforms at the instant of fault occurrence. Local measurements of the relay voltages and currents are used to identify local forward faults, and to estimate the fault location within a short time frame. Furthermore, the relay provides backup protection for forward external faults on adjacent lines. The concept is first verified on a simple feeder. Then, a meshed DC microgrid, modeled in PSCAD/EMTDC environment, is used to further verify and evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme. Various fault scenarios are performed to examine the relay’s performance under different fault conditions. The results highlight the speed, selectivity, and sensitivity of the proposed method against bolted, low- and high-resistance faults.

An Asynchronous Bundled-Data Barrel Shifter Design That Incorporates a Deterministic Completion Detection Technique

A design for an asynchronous bundled-data barrel shifter that incorporates a deterministic completion detection circuitry is proposed. A bundled-data asynchronous circuit is inherently free from challenges associated with clock signals, but it is devoid of information pertaining to propagation delay through the circuit. An obvious solution is to produce the acknowledge signal at least <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\delta $ </tex-math></inline-formula> delay units after the arrival of the request signal, where <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\delta $ </tex-math></inline-formula> is the maximum propagation delay through the circuit. However, similar to synchronous circuits, such bundle-data asynchronous approach does not take advantage of times where the propagation delay through the circuit is less than <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\delta $ </tex-math></inline-formula> . This brief proposes a design for a deterministic completion detection scheme for an asynchronous bundled-data barrel shifter. Once the request signal is active, the shifting operation begins, and the acknowledge signal is generated after a delay that matches the actual shifting delay associated with the shift amount using a deterministic completion detection scheme. The shifter can reduce the idle time between the time its output is ready and the start of the next shift cycle by using a deterministic completion detection circuit. In this brief, the proposed design of the asynchronous barrel shifter and its average delay is analyzed. Its performance is also compared against its synchronous counterpart.

A Pre-Activation, Golden IC Free, Hardware Trojan Detection Approach

The increasing concern about the security and reliability of abroad manufactured integrated circuits (ICs) has attracted academia and industries to develop hardware Trojan (HT) detection approaches. This article presents an efficient integrated HT detection technique based on evaluating changes in the integrated parasitic capacitors. The HT detection circuit consists of a capacitively coupled, low-power, low-noise, operational transconductance amplifier (OTA), which can detect capacitance fluctuations in the range of 10 aF. The HT detection circuit consumes <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$5.88~\mu \text {W}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> from 1.8-V power supply in 180-nm CMOS technology. The detection method is based on clustering the IC and monitoring each cluster&#x2019;s flag. The flag set circuit is designed to sense parasitic capacitance and change its status based on it. The proposed technique can detect the HT circuit before the activation of the IC. Moreover, this technique shows very promising results in detecting HTs with zero-delay effect, which is a challenging issue in the conventional delay-based side-channel signal analysis method. More significantly, the proposed method does not require a golden IC for HT detection and can detect the HT using simulation-based data. The proposed method creates a recognizable difference detection signal between the capacitive behavior of an infected and a pure IC. This results in a high confidence level in the proposed detection method. The proposed idea is implemented on ISCAS&#x2019;85 benchmark circuits, and the detection outcomes and the statistical simulations are presented.

IoT-oriented high-efficient anti-malware hardware focusing on time series metadata extractable from inside a processor core

We aim to improve the efficiency of our previously proposed anti-malware hardware; it is a hardware-implemented malware detection mechanism that uses information inside the processor. We previously evaluated a prototype, but, due to its prototypical nature, there remain limitations, such as only detecting certain behaviors, high power consumption, and a tendency to bloat the training model. In this paper, we propose a circuit and a learning method to achieve high efficiency, low power consumption, and light weight for the model. In considering these three issues, we focus on time-series metadata obtained by transforming the processor information. To improve efficiency, we implement predictive detection to predict the behavior of metadata in the malware detection component. This lets the model detect malware within less than 19% of the number of execution cycles of the conventional method. To reduce power consumption, we implement a sampling circuit that interrupts the input to the detection circuit at regular intervals, reducing the system’s uptime by 99% while maintaining judgment accuracy. Finally, for a light weight, we focus on the training process of the metadata generator based on a machine-learning model. By applying sampling learning and feature dimensionality reduction in the training process, a metadata generator approximately 16% smaller than the previous version is created.

A Low-Power, Fast-Transient Output-Capacitorless LDO with Transient Enhancement Unit and Current Booster

With the wide application of advanced portable devices, output-capacitorless low dropout regulators (OCL-LDO) are receiving increasing attention. This paper presents a low quiescent current OCL-LDO with fast transient response. A transient enhancement unit (TEU) is proposed as the output voltage-spike detection circuit. It enhances the transient response by improving the slew-rate at the gate of the power transistor. In addition, a current booster (CB), which consists of a current subtractor and a non-linear current mirror, is designed to improve the slew-rate further. The current subtractor increases the transconductances of the differential-input transistors to obtain a large slewing current, while the non-linear current mirror further boosts the current with no extra quiescent current consumption. The simulated results show that the proposed OCL-LDO is capable of supplying 100 mA load current while consuming 10.3 μA quiescent current. It regulates the output at 1 V from a supply voltage ranging from 1.2 to 1.8 V. When the load current is stepped from 1 mA to 100 mA in 100 ns, the OCL-LDO has attained a settling time of 190 ns, and the output voltage undershoot and overshoot are controlled under 110 mV.

Optimized design of the detection coils for the metal foreign object detection system applied to wireless power transfer

In order to improve the safety and reliability of electric vehicle wireless charging, foreign object detection is an indispensable auxiliary function. In this paper, the equivalent model of foreign object detection circuit is firstly established, and then the foreign object detection principle based on active detection coil is analyzed from the angle of the circuit and magnetic circuit. Then the optimization scheme of metal foreign object detection coil is proposed through simulation comparison and analysis. The results show that the design proposed in this paper can increase the maximum value of |Bz| to 3.6 mT, effectively improving the accuracy of metal foreign object detection.

A non-time division multiplexing single inductor solar and piezoelectric energy multi-input harvesting interface circuit

Due to time-varying and instability, single environmental energy cannot provide reliable energy for wireless sensor network nodes. Therefore, researchers propose to use multi-source synergy to provide power. Still, these circuits take time-division multiplexing or setting priority, which can only harvest one kind of environment energy at a particular moment, resulting in low energy harvesting efficiency and complex circuit structure. Also, a single vibration source is configured with multiple piezoelectric (PZT) harvesters to obtain more power. For the above questions, this paper proposes a non-time-division multiplexing single-inductor synchronous electric charge extraction circuit (NTD-SECE), which is mainly composed of rectifier bridge, peak detection circuit, control circuit, input comparison circuit, and buck-boost circuit. Theoretical analysis and experiments verify the effectiveness of the interface circuit. The results show that NTD-SECE can extract energy from photovoltaic (PV) and multi-PZTs by non-time division multiplexing, the maximum power is 450 mW. It has broad application prospects in the energy supply of low-power equipment.

An Energy-Efficient Wearable Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy System Employing Dual-level Adaptive Sampling Technique.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a powerful medical imaging tool in brain science and psychology, it can also be employed in brain-computer interface (BCI) due to its noninvasive and artifact-less-sensitive characteristics. Conventional ways to detect large-area brain activity using near-infrared (NIR) technology are based on Time-division or Frequency-division modulation technique, which traverses all physical sensory channels in a specific period. To achieve higher imaging resolution or brain-tasks classification accuracy, the NIRS system require higher density and more channels, which conflict with the limited battery capacity. Inspired by the functional atlas of the human brain, this paper proposes a spatial adaptive sampling (SAS) method. It can change the active channel pattern of the fNIRS system to match with the real-time brain activity, to increase the energy efficiency without significant reduction on the brain imaging quality or the accuracy of brain activity classification. Therefore, the number of the averaging enabled channels will be dramatically reduced in practice. To verify the proposed SAS technique, a wearable and flexible NIRS system has been implemented, in which each channel of light-emitting diode (LED) drive circuits and photodiode (PD) detection circuits can be power gated independently. Brain task experiments have been conducted to validate the proposed method, the power consumption of the LED drive module is reduced by 46.58% compared to that without SAS technology while maintaining an average brain imaging PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) of 35 dB. The brain-task classification accuracy is 80.47%, which has a 2.67% reduction compared to that without the SAS technique.