This thesis presents the evaluation of various principles of automatic rain detection, based on prototype-designed electronic sensors. We focused on the following detection principles: optical, capacitive and sound principle.
Initially, we planned a mechanical design. For the optical principle, we chose the transparent material. It was designed in the form of a prism, so that the light was reflected between two different optical media at an appropriate angle. The LED was used for the transmit side and the photo diode for the receiving side. For the capacitive principle, we planned a special structure of interleaved tracks on the insulating substrate. The tracks were coated with an insulating protective agent. For the sound principle we used a thin metal sheet, which vibrates when a water droplet falls on it. A piezoelectric element was attached to the underside of the panel as a sensing element.
We designed electrical circuits for each principle and assembled them on a test board. We connected the circuits to the mechanical part. The component calculations were confirmed by measurements of the circuits and the final values of the electrical components in the circuit were determined. Then we made printed circuit boards (PCBs). All prototype PCBs were controlled by a microcontroller development board with an ATmega microcontroller. Appropriate programs had to be written to control the electronics and display measurement results.
We simulated the dropping of water droplets, false detection and measured the response of prototypes. We also carried out measurements in realistic environment under different outdoor conditions including the rain. The results were processed and the rain detection in time and frequency space was evaluated.
The complexity of the manufacture depends on the individual detector and the associated electrical circuit. The measurements show which sensor turns out to be better and more appropriate for a particular application. We also identified some disadvantages of each detector and its behavior in case of false detection.
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