Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk › unknown
Description
Monitoring the condition of engine oil is of great interest in automotive applications. Since the
recommended intervals between oil changes are based on worst-case assumptions, they can be
increased by actually monitoring oil condition. Moreover, such monitoring provides extra information
about the state of the engine, thereby enhancing the detection and diagnosis of potential problems. In
the quest for a robust low-cost sensor, several sensors, each probing different aspects of oil
condition, have been evaluated. In particular, we have investigated permittivity, temperature, and
viscosity sensors. In our presentation, we review the general demands on oil condition sensors and
current developments on the market, outline the relevance of the selected parameters and the
interpretation of the measured signals, discuss the development of a miniaturized micro-acoustic
viscosity sensor and the associated readout electronics, and finally provide some sample results
illustrating the application of the sensor.