Abstract
In recent years there has been an increasing selection of commercially available electronic components specified for very high temperature (200C+) operation, driven by the needs of harsh-environment applications such as oil and gas exploration/production, aerospace, heavy industrial, and automotive. However, there remains a significant technical challenge to integrate these components into reliable, high performance systems. We previously presented a complete reference design of a precision multichannel sensor data acquisition and control system rated to 200C, including characterized hardware, firmware, and software. The design is based around low power 16 bit SAR ADCs and an ARM® Cortex®-M0 processor and is optimized for high resolution and high throughput measurements while maintaining low power and a small footprint. In this paper we present the test results of this system over temperature. The reference platform is available off the shelf, including hardware design files, processor firmware source code, and PC software for data logging and display, providing engineers a rapid development tool for prototyping and a faster path to production for complex harsh-environment applications.
