• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1672-1682
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• 2017

For grid-connected LCL-filtered inverters, the inverter-side current can be used as the control object with one current sensor for both LCL resonance damping and over-current protection, while the grid-voltage feedforward or harmonic resonant compensator is used for suppressing low-order grid current harmonics. However, it was found that the grid current harmonics were high and often beyond the standard limitations with this control. The limitations of the inverter-side current control in suppressing low-order grid current harmonics are analyzed through inverter output impedance modeling. No matter which compensator is used, the maximum magnitudes of the inverter output impedance at lower frequencies are closely related to the LCL parameters and are decreased by increasing the control delay. Then, to improve the grid current quality without complicating the control or design, this study proposes designing the filter capacitance considering the current harmonic constraint and using a PWM mode with a short control delay. Test results have confirmed the limitation and verified the performance of the improved approaches.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.121-128
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• 2019

Supercapacitors are attracting much attention in sensor, military and space applications due to their excellent thermal stability and non-explosion. The ionic liquid is more thermally stable than other electrolytes and can be used as a high temperature electrolyte, but it is not easy to realize a high temperature energy device because the separator shrinks at high temperature. Here, we report a study on electrochemical supercapacitors using a composite electrolyte film that does not require a separator. The composite electrolyte is composed of thermoplastic polyurethane, ionic liquid and fumed silica nanoparticles, and it acts as a separator as well as an electrolyte. The silica nanoparticles at the optimum mass concentration of 4wt% increase the ionic conductivity of the composite electrolyte and shows a low interfacial resistance. The 5 wt% polyurethane in the composite electrolyte exhibits excellent electrochemical properties. At $175^{\circ}C$, the capacitance of the supercapacitor using our free standing composite electrolyte is 220 F/g, which is 25 times higher than that at room temperature. This study has many potential applications in the electrolyte of next generation energy storage devices.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.366-370
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• 2022

A 12 ㎛ pixel-sized 360 × 240 microbolometer focal plane array (MBFPA) was fabricated using a complementary metaloxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible process. To release the MBFPA membrane, an amorphous carbon layer (ACL) processed at a low temperature (<400 ℃) was deposited as a sacrificial layer. The thermal time constant of the MBFPA was improved by using serpentine legs and controlling the thickness of the SiNx layers at 110, 130, and 150 nm on the membrane, with response times of 6.13, 6.28, and 7.48 msec, respectively. Boron-doped amorphous Si (a-Si), which exhibits a high-temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) and CMOS compatibility, was deposited on top of the membrane as an IR absorption layer to provide heat energy transformation. The structural stability of the thin SiNx membrane and serpentine legs was observed using field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The fabrication yield was evaluated by measuring the resistance of a representative pixel in the array, which was in the range of 0.8-1.2 Mohm (as designed). The yields for SiNx thicknesses of SiNx at 110, 130, and 150 nm were 75, 86, and 86%, respectively.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.423-428
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• 2015

Impedancemetric $NO_x$ (NO and $NO_2$) gas sensors were designed with a stacked-layer structure and fabricated using $LaCr_xCo_{1-x}O_3$ (x = 0, 0.2, 0.5, 0.8 and 1) as the receptor material and $Li_{1.3}Al_{0.3}Ti_{1.7}(PO_4)_3$ plates as the solid-electrolyte transducer material. The $LaCr_xCo_{1-x}O_3$ layers were prepared with a polymeric precursor method that used ethylene glycol as the solvent, acetyl acetone as the chelating agent, and polyvinylpyrrolidone as the polymer additive. The effects of the Co concentration on the structural, morphological, and $NO_x$ sensing properties of the $LaCr_xCo_{1-x}O_3$ powders were investigated with powder X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, and its response to 20~250 ppm of $NO_x$ at $400^{\circ}C$ (for 1 kHz and 0.5 V), respectively. When the as-prepared precursors were calcined at $700^{\circ}C$, only a single phase was detected, which corresponded to a perovskite-type structure. The XRD results showed that as the Co concentration of the $LaCr_xCo_{1-x}O_3$powders increased, the crystal structure was transformed from an orthorhombic phase to a rhombohedral phase. Moreover, the $LaCr_xCo_{1-x}O_3$ powders with $0{\leq}x<0.8$ had a rhombohedral symmetry. The size of the particles in the $LaCr_xCo_{1-x}O_3$powders increased from 0.1 to $0.5{\mu}m$ as the Co concentration increased. The sensing performance of the stack-structured $LaCr_xCo_{1-x}O_3/Li_{1.3}Al_{0.3}Ti_{1.7}(PO_4)_3$ sensors was found to divide the impedance component between the resistance and capacitance. The response of these sensors to NO gas was more sensitive than that to $NO_2$ gas. Compared to other impedancemetric sensors, the $LaCr_{0.8}Co_{0.2}O_3/Li_{1.3}Al_{0.3}Ti_{1.7}(PO_4)_3$ sensor exhibited good reversibility and reliable sensingresponse properties for $NO_x$ gases.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.93-100
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• 2011

Maintenance of adequate soil water potential during the period of crop growth is necessary to support optimum plant growth and yields. A better understanding of soil water movement within and below the rooting zone can facilitate optimal irrigation scheduling aimed at minimizing the adverse effects of water stress on crop growth and development and the leaching of water below the root zone which can have adverse environmental effects. The objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of using a portable irrigation controller with an Watermark sensor for the cultivation of drip-irrigated vegetable crops in a greenhouse. The control capability of the irrigation controller for a soil water potential of -20 kPa was evaluated under summer conditions by cultivating 45-day-old tomato plants grown in three differently textured soils (sandy loam, loam, and loamy sands). Water contents through each soil profile were continuously monitored using three Sentek probes, each consisting of three capacitance sensors at 10, 20, and 30 cm depths. Even though a repeatable cycling of soil water potential occurred for the potential treatment, the lower limit of the Watermark (about 0 kPa) obtained in this study presented a limitation of using the Watermark sensor for optimal irrigation of tomato plants where -20 kPa was used as a point for triggering irrigations. This problem might be related to the slow response time and inadequate soil-sensor interface of the Watermark sensor as compared to a porous and ceramic cup-based tensiometer with a sensitive pressure transducer. In addition, the irrigation time of 50 to 60 min at each of the irrigation operation gave a rapid drop of the potential to zero, resulting in over irrigation of tomatoes. There were differences in water content among the three different soil types under the variable rate irrigation, showing a range of water contents of 16 to 24%, 17 to 28%, and 24 to 32% for loamy sand, sandy loam, and loam soils, respectively. The greatest rate increase in water content was observed in the top of 10 cm depth of sandy loam soil within almost 60 min from the start of irrigation.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.11
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• pp.807-813
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• 2016

Escherichia coli are important indicator organisms, used routinely for the monitoring of water and food safety. For quick, sensitive and real-time detection of E. coli we developed a 2'F modified RNA aptamer Ec3, by Cell-SELEX. The 31 nucleotide truncated Ec3 demonstrated improved binding and low nano-molar affinity to E. coli. The aptamer developed by us out-performs the commercial antibody and aptamer used for E. coli detection. Ec3(31) aptamer based E. coli detection was done using three different detection formats and the assay sensitivities were determined. Conventional Ec3(31)-biotin-streptavidin magnetic separation could detect E. coli with a limit of detection of $1.3{\times}10^6CFU/ml$. Although, optical analytic technique, biolayer interferometry, did not improve the sensitivity of detection for whole cells, a very significant improvement in the detection was seen with the E. coli cell lysate ($5{\times}10^4CFU/ml$). Finally we developed Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) gap capacitance biosensor that has detection limits of $2{\times}10^4CFU/mL$ of E. coli cells, without any labeling and signal amplification techniques. We believe that our developed method can step towards more complex and real sample application.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.324-327
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• 2020

The impact of output conductance (g_o) on the short-circuit current-gain cut-off frequency (f_T) in In_0.8Ga_0.2As high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) on an InP substrate was investigated. An attempted was made to extract the values of f_T in a simplified small-signal model (SSM) of the HEMTs, derive an analytical formula for f_T in terms of the extrinsic model parameters of the simplified SSM, which are related to the intrinsic model parameters of a general SSM, and verify its validity for devices with L_g from 260 to 25 nm. In long-channel devices, the effect of the intrinsic output conductance (g_oi) on f_T was negligible. This was because, from the simplified SSM perspective, three model parameters, such as g_{m_ext}, C_{gs_ext} and C_{gd_ext}, were weakly dependent on g_oi. However, in short-channel devices, g_oi was found to play a significant role in degrading f_T as L_g was scaled down. The increase in g_oi in short-channel devices caused a considerable reduction in g_{m_ext} and an overall increase in the total extrinsic gate capacitance, yielding a decrease in f_T with g_oi. Finally, the results were used to infer how f_T is influenced by g_oi in HEMTs, emphasizing that improving electrostatic integrity is also critical importance to benefit fully from scaling down L_g.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.2224-2236
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• 2014

The performance of an isolated high voltage full bridge converter is improved using a voltage doubler. In a conventional high voltage full bridge converter, the diode of the transformer secondary voltage undergoes a voltage spike due to the leakage inductance of the transformer and the resonance occurring with the parasitic capacitance of the diode. In addition, in the phase shift control, conduction loss largely increases from the freewheeling mode because of the circulating current. The efficiency of the converter is thus reduced. However, in the proposed converter, the high voltage dual converter consists of a voltage doubler because the circulating current of the converter is reduced to increase efficiency. On the other hand, in the proposed converter, an input current is distributed when using parallel input / serial output and the output voltage can be doubled. However, the voltages in the 2 serial DC links might be unbalanced due to line impedance, passive and active components impedance, and sensor error. Considering these problems, DC injection is performed due to the complementary operations of half bridge inverters as well as the disadvantage of the unbalance in the DC link. Therefore, the serial output of the converter needs to control the balance of the algorithm. In this paper, the performance of the conventional converter is improved and a balance control algorithm is proposed for the proposed converter. Also, the system of the 1.5[kW] PCS is verified through an experiment examining the operation and stability.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.209-218
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• 2017

Healthcare services can be provided through a number of independent service platforms for measurement of vital signs, diagnosis and prevention of diseases, and Information and communication technology(ICT) such as internet and mobile are converged to provide health information to users at anytime and anywhere, and it is in the center of the IoT(Internet of things). Accordingly, in this paper, we designed IoT based urination management system and evaluate the performance. A low - power Zigbee network was constructed for the configuration of the urination management system. The implemented capacitive diaper sensor was operable for the duration of 2,000 hours. We also built a database server using Raspberry Pi, a tiny embedded device, and stored the collected data to verify the data through an Android-based mobile application. The proposed urination management system can be utilized not only for the older patients, but also for the infants.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.101-109
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• 2004

This paper presents a novel z-axis accelerometer with perfectly aligned vertical combs fabricated using the extended sacrificial bulk micromachining (extended SBM) process. The z-axis accelerometer is fabricated using only one (111) SOI wafer and two photo masks without wafer bonding or CMP processes as used by other research efforts that involve vertical combs. In our process, there is no misalignment in lateral gap between the upper and lower comb electrodes, because all critical dimensions including lateral gaps are defined using only one mask. The fabricated accelerometer has the structure thickness of $30{\mu}m$, the vertical offset of $12{\mu}m$, and lateral gap between electrodes of $4{\mu}m$. Torsional springs and asymmetric proof mass produce a vertical displacement when an external z-axis acceleration is applied, and capacitance change due to the vertical displacement of the comb is detected by charge-to-voltage converter. The signal-to-noise ratio of the modulated and demodulated output signal is 80 dB and 76.5 dB, respectively. The noise equivalent input acceleration resolution of the modulated and demodulated output signal is calculated to be $500{\mu}g$ and $748{\mu}g$. The scale factor and linearity of the accelerometer are measured to be 1.1 mV/g and 1.18% FSO, respectively.