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MEMS Sensors in IoT Applications
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ISSN: 2229-6972 (Online)
Journal of ISSN: 2347-7237 (Print)
Control & Instrumentation Volume 12, Issue 1, 2021
DOI (Journal): 10.37591/JoCI
STM JOURNALS
http://engineeringjournals.stmjournals.in/index.php/JoCI/index
Research JoCI
MEMS Sensors in IoT Applications
Nazish Hussain1, Divyashree N.2,*, S. Saravana Kumar3
Abstract
IoT is a system which connects objects and users via internet. Things can be much more simplified
using MEMS technology where they can operate with Ultra low power and can provide accurate
results in a convenient method. MEMS can improve traditional technologies involved in IoT. This
paper focuses on energy harvesting, performance of MEMS sensors, fault identification, smart
communication and MEMS switching technology. As we know that IoT devices are well equipped in
certain areas to utilize environmental energy resources like hydropower, light, wind, thermal and
solar. So MEMS sensors in these applications uphold the well workability and proficient results.
Keywords: IoT, MEMS sensors, MEMS switching technology, hydropower, solar
INTRODUCTION
The surrounding things are becoming more useful and interconnected in our daily life. The word
“smart” is more often used nowadays. The Internet of Things (IOT) helps every object in the
environment to get its digital identity in the world of internet. The smart objects have these
functionalities: Self-identification, Data acquisition from the environment, Data Transfer [1]. As there
is high demand for IOT applications which includes multi sensors like Proximity Sensing, Humidity
sensing, Pressure sensing and measurement of acceleration. These IOT application devices consists
capacitive sensing materials. As there is a limited budget so, these multi-sensors IOT application
devices must consist a capacitive circuit which is energy efficient [2]. The most common technology
i.e., Internet and IOT, but we do not use these technologies optimally for learning physics [3].
Pendulum and springs helps us to understand the relationship between force and vibration. Through
oscillation or vibrations understanding the phenomena of waves and energy will be easier. Water is
widely transported through pipelines. While transporting leakage of water has been resulted in loss of
billions of cubic meters every year. It can be reduced by pipeline leakage detection with an immediate
alarm system [4]. Thermal Sensors are used in automotive, wearable devices, human intruder alert
system, temperature sensors and IOT applications [5]. At the beginning, the promising research field
were microwave miniaturization which was with
*Author for Correspondence the use of Silicon. MEMS technology were used
Divyashree N.
E-mail: divyamukundha8@gmail.com
for the completion of micro-switches, resonators,
variable capacitors and programmable phase
1
B.Tech. Student, Department of Electronics and shifters. The possibility of integrating RF signal
Communication Engineering, School of Engineering and
Technology, CMR University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
functions added strength to waveguides and
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics and making use of various mechanical properties laid
Communication Engineering, School of Engineering and for the bases of RFMEMS [5-6]. IOT devices have
Technology, CMR University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
3
Professor, Department of Computer Science and many sensors, one of the most commonly used
Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology, CMR sensors is accelerometer, and its operating power
University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
is very less because of the ULP consumption. So,
Received Date: April 5, 2021 these devices are used in smart phones and
Accepted Date: April 15, 2021 wearable devices for many applications. Batteries
Published Date: April 30, 2021
of small size are used in devices that may operate
Citation: Nazish Hussain, Divyashree N., S. Saravana for a long period of time. As a solution we can use
Kumar. MEMS Sensors in IoT Applications. Journal of ULP (Ultra Low Power) internal sensors for long
Control & Instrumentation. 2021; 12(1): 18–22p.
time operation [7]. The growth of IOT have
© STM Journals 2021. All Rights Reserved 18
MEMS Sensors in IoT Applications Hussain et al.
increased the demand of MEMS switches through which IOT devices are monitored [8]. MEMS have
many attributes like weight, cost, power, and small in size. These attributes help IOT to sense physical
information from to communicate between the internet and the object [9]. RFID technologies are
gaining popularity these days because of its features like smart identification, location, positioning,
tracking, security etc. [10]. This have various applications in the field of medicine, automobiles and
other electronics [11-31].
COMPARATIVE STUDY
There is less focus on how IOT can be directly inserted in integrated technologies [1]. The IOT
device needs integrated, miniaturized and low energy wireless devices which normally runs on
batteries which are non-renewable. If we are able to get zero power, energy autonomous technologies
by directly harvesting electricity from the energy present in surrounding environment then the cost
will be reduced and gradually the efficiency will also be increased [1]. In the field of Energy
Harvesting (EH) MEMS the major researches are on these following categories Vibration/Motion:
Converting energy from motion to electric power, Thermal Energy: Converting thermal energy to
electric power, Ambient Light: Converting light energy to electric power, EM and RF: Wireless
Transfer of Power, ULP electronics: Designing low power devices with higher efficiency [1].
This review [1] specifically focuses on Vibrations (EH) i.e., converting mechanical energy present in
environmental vibration into source of electricity. For converting electrical power from vibration, the
most common methods used are Piezoelectric, electromagnetic and electrostatic. In piezoelectric effect
the electricity is extracted from the resultant of vibrations of particles. In electrostatic the displacement
of charge between the capacitor electrodes with relative movement provides the power [1].
Capacitance-Digital converter has a circuit which consumes a large amount of power. In phase
modulation, to get capacitance-digital converter time is modulated with capacitive sensors. This
conversion method also requires more power with a large amount of time [2]. Capacitive Sensors with
different ranges can be easily configured through charge sharing technique. To get energy efficient
circuit low power dynamic comparator which has a switch capacitor circuit is utilized and to get
digital output digital controller with a counter is utilized. Hence, it can achieve a wide range of input
capacitance which requires very less time for conversion [2].
The Oscillation of spring mass system has been detected by MEMS Sensor. The data is directly
transferred to the internet via microcontroller. Through the data collected learning the concept will be
easier. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) approach and ISLE
(Investigation Science Learning Environment) based model used in this paper [3] will be helpful in
learning mechanics about Spring-Mass System [3].
Without affecting the integrity of pipes, leakage can be detected though various techniques like
Tracer gases, flow, pressure, ground penetrating radars, acoustic sensors which include hydrophones.
Acoustic sensors with hydrophones provide better sensitivity and it provides the exact location of the
leakage. MEMS based hydrophones provides high optimal with small size at lower cost [4].
Piezoelectric aluminium nitride (AlN) based MEMS hydrophones are used because it has highest
noise resolution. MEMS based hydrophones are connected at different nodes of pipe and these
hydrophones are connected to IOT enabled microcontrollers. The data is stored from these are stored
at server which helps to detect the exact location of the leakage with an alarm system [4].
The technology used currently for commercial purpose uses bolometer, thermopiles, and pyro
electric sensors for infrared sensors [5]. The TMOS-MEMS device has micro-mechanical floating
sensors which absorbs infrared radiation and generates an electric signal because of change in
temperature. It requires low power because it operates on sub threshold region. IT has high sensitivity
© STM Journals 2021. All Rights Reserved 19
Journal of Control & Instrumentation
Volume 12, Issue 1
ISSN: 2229-6972 (Online), ISSN: 2347-7237 (Print)
compared to other commercial thermal sensors. In vacuum its performance is the highest. For ambient
pressure, a high sensitivity chemical gas sensor is used known as ‘GMOS’. To get optimal
performance and to protect its structure from dust, it is very much important to have the packaging
with controlled vacuum [5].
The work in [6] represents how RF MEMS technologies exploits marketing and some limiting
factors of MEMS technologies. Mobile communication’s next generation i.e., 5G as well as IOT
technologies demands for higher frequencies so that the consumed power can be lowered. RF-MEMS
are considered as more promising candidates for the upcoming future technologies [6].
MEMS technology on capacitive accelerometer have been developed using many Analog Front-
End (AFC) IC’s, and their performance depends upon required applications like low-noise
characteristics, high sensitivity. To perform these operations, MEMS sensors must provide feedback
in electrostatic force, high voltage. To generate electrostatic force, power consumption is high and the
cost is also high. Q factor can be increased to get low mechanical noise, but there will be difficulty in
stabilizing the system [7].
This work [7] provides the theoretical analysis of decreasing the noise requirements in AFC IC’s,
which results in ULP operation. A circuit is presented in [7] where feed forward noise reduction
techniques is used to lessen the noise of amplifier.
MEMS switches have applications like large volume production, lower cost, small size which
makes them prominent. In RFID applications the link between the tag and RFID interrogators have
been established through MEMS switches. The same method is employed to gather the data and
closely monitor the environment to study about the shocks which will be helpful in protecting the
device damaging due to overload shock in IOT sensors [8].
This work [8] represents a MEMS inertial switch which mainly focuses on shock resistibility and
excellent results are found through a multi-direction constraint structure. Because of ultra-high
acceleration the shock resistibility is in reversal sensitive direction. It is also proved in [8] that
constraint blocks of reverse direction have significant effect on shock resistibility. The hammer drop
test is used in [8] to evaluate the micro-fabrication of MEMS switches.
MEMS have many attributes like weight, cost, power, and small in size. These attributes help IOT
to sense physical information from to communicate between the internet and the object. To observe
their performance, MEMS helps the internet to monitor physical things like health, medical,
aerospace, smart agriculture. The data collected will be available through IOT and their performance
are based on the capabilities of the MEMS sensors. Regardless, MEMS sensors have issues in
accuracy. Not all the MEMS sensors require high accuracy but some of the application needs certain
range of accuracy for their better performance. Due to lack of uncertainty and inaccuracy in MEMS, it
is difficult to self-calibrate them [9].
For accurate sensing, the MEMS sensors must undergo many processes like integration, design, and
their testing as well as packaging are of great challenge in MEMS technologies which tends to affect
the manufacturing costs up to 25%-75%. There are many testing methods but improper testing results
in various consequences [9]. The difference of average value and the true value can be termed as
accuracy. The paper [9] discusses how quantifiable uncertainty helps in accurate measurement of
MEMS devices with untidy stiffness, force and mass. An Autonomous MEMS device is developed
which can achieve more accuracy with low uncertainty in [9].
As RFID are deployed with IOT, so there will be great demand for this in future. RFID tags which
are active and semi-active needs batteries to turn on their circuit. So, isn’t of powering the RFID tags,
© STM Journals 2021. All Rights Reserved 20
MEMS Sensors in IoT Applications Hussain et al.
the readers are powered up with batteries to get inductive and radiative signals from RFID tags. A
rectifier is used to activate the circuit of RFID transponder which converts induced voltage is
converted to DC voltage. Due to limited power, the internal circuits must be optimized to get
maximum efficiency. It is difficult to replace Barcode labels into RFID tags. Because labels are
cheaper than the tags. To make the RFID tags cheaper, RFID tags must be inserted with micro
electrical chip [10].
RFID tags are communicated with readers via backscattering based on continuous time modulation
in paper [10]. In this method, the tag readers antenna continuously emits signal and its signal get
reflected when it is brought near reader which creates a link between the reader and the tag. The
receiver is connected to a large load which acts as a switch. MEMS switching module is used to get a
unique back scattering code or identification code in paper [10]. This MEMS switching technology
makes the RFID a much cost efficient.
CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSIONS
This paper summarizes the implementation of MEMS in IoT applications. Energy harvesting can be
improved with the help of MEMS based IOT, where power can be generated by changing factors in
the environment such as pressure, temperature, sound and vibration. Specialty of MEMS dignifies the
IOT devices by its features like compact size, effective cost and operating power. So MEMS in IoT
will be the new trend in simplification and accuracy for smart devices.
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