Master theses / Diploma theses / Compulsory internship

Data acquisition in large industrial vessels such as biogas fermenters or wastewater treatment plants is limited to local measurement points due to limited access to the vessel and the non-transparency of the fluid. To optimize these kinds of vessels, the three-dimensional flow field and the spatial distribution of fluid properties such as temperature and electrical conductivity inside the vessel must be known. This can be achieved by the autonomous flow -following sensor particles developed by the HZDR. Equipped with a pressure sensor, an accelerometer, two gyroscopes and a magnetometer, the sensor particle can track the movement inside the vessels and derive the flow field from that. The sensor particle also feature an actuating buoyancy control unit. For the investigation of smaller vessels a smaller version of the sensor particle is needed. The objective of this master thesis is to hard- and software develop, manufacturing and test of a miniature flow tracking sensor. This includes the following tasks, based on the existing multi-parameter sensor concept:

• Picking a suitable microcontroller (MC) to perform the data acquisition
• Design of the schematic and layout of the printed circuit board which includes the above mentioned sensors, a battery with a wireless charging concept, data storage on an SD-card
• Design the casing
• Assemble the board and the casing
• Implementing the data acquisition on the MC
• Test the sensor particle in a lab scale vessel

• Studies in electrical engineering, mechatronics, mechanical engineering and similar engineering courses
• Experience in programming microcontrollers for embedded systems (e.g. STM32)
• Experience in board design for embedded systems