Miniaturized Flow Sensor Based On Thermal Feedback And Digitized Power Distribution

Abstract

In this paper, we have proposed a miniaturized flow sensor based on thermal feedback and digitized power distribution across two microheaters. The performance of the sensor has been verified by nitrogen (N2) gas flow from -11 m/s to 11 m/s. Our findings show a significant improvement in sensitivity, which is 10.69 %/m/s, as compared to its counterpart using a simple thermal feedback strategy with voltage redistribution. Besides, our sensor achieved an excellent long-term (15 mins) signal stability with a sensor resolution of up to 7.5 mm/s. Notably, this sensor system maintains excellent sensitivity even at low signal amplification gains, indicating that this strategy will help enable highly robust solid-state flow sensor designs in the future.