CTU Events

Capacitive Sensor Interface Circuits

16 Sep 2025   10:00

Sreenath Vijayakumar: Exploring the Exciting Realm of Capacitive Sensor Interface Circuits and Their Applications
seminar of the Department of Measurement

Abstract: Capacitive sensors are long-standing in the world of industrial and scientific sensors. Their performance characteristics are well-appreciated by scientists and engineers, and their applications include the sensing of numerous physical parameters, such as human proximity, touch, humidity, displacement, angle, level, fluid flow, and position. In some applications, the value of the nominal/offset capacitance of the sensor C0 can be very large compared to the change in the sensor capacitance. In such cases, a large percentage of the output counts/bits is used to measure and represent the C0 leading to an underutilisation of the hardware as far as the measurement of the change in the sensor capacitance is concerned. An efficient readout scheme that provides final output directly proportional to the change in sensor capacitance alone, independent of the nominal value C0 of the π-model sensor will be discussed. Furthermore, the presentation will include a compilation of research initiatives undertaken at IIT Palakkad and Revin, with a particular focus on the agritech sector.

Bio: Sreenath Vijayakumar is Faculty in-charge of Sensors and Electronic Instrumentation Laboratory (Sense-In-lab) and Smart AgriTech Centre for Advanced Research and Development (SATCARD) and Faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Palakkad. He serves as the director and co-founder of Revin Techno Solutions Pvt. Ltd., which develops novel solutions from Intelligent Sensing to Agentic AI applied in Agritech and Edtech domains. He received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from IIT Madras, Chennai, India, in 2018. From 2018 to 2019, he was a Product Development Scientist with Bajaj Automobiles, Pune, India. In 2019, he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Palakkad, where he is currently an Associate Professor. His honours and awards include the first prize in the 'Environmental Sensing Project Competition (ESPC)', Finland, in 2023; ICST Recognition on Emerging Research, Sydney, Australia in 2022; IITM Institute Research Award in 2018 (first rank in the department level and second rank in the institute level); Dr. M. Mukunda Rao Endowment Prize in 2018 for best Ph.D. Thesis in EE Dept.; IITM Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Award in 2018; IEEE Best Paper Award in 2016 I2MTC conference held in Taipei, Taiwan; IEEE Student Travel Award in 2015 I2MTC conference held in Pisa, Italy. His current research interests include electronic instrumentation, sensors for agricultural and industrial applications, and interface circuits for sensors.

Place

T2:A3-318

Contact person

Pavel Ripka, ripka@fel.cvut.cz