Validation for Micro- and Nano-Sensors

The rapid development of sensor and processing technologies is offering many opportunities for embedding new functionality within sensing devices. One important area is the development of diagnostics. While the generation of diagnostic error codes is becoming common, these can be difficult to integrate into a wider control system, and do not address the more fundamental issue of the quality of the underlying measurement. The SEVA (sensor validation) approach, which is now embedded in a British Standard [1], proposes that each sensor assesses the quality of each measurement value it generates, including the influence of any diagnosed faults, in order to generate an on-line uncertainty value. A variety of techniques can be used for validation. A micro-machined flow meter is considered along with a technique for exploiting redundancy among multiple micro- or nano-sensors.