A Multifunctional Liquid Sensor

The sensor is made of a probe and electronic hardware that includes a microprocessor.

The multifunctional liquid sensor measures different liquid parameters by using a single hardware and different software. The product does in the sensors' world what the Multi-Media does in the Personal Computer world. With Multi-Media you replace different hardware (fax, answering machine, stereo, video etc.) with a single one; and then, using different software, you get the same functions as the individual function hardware. Similarly, with the present sensor, you use a single hardware and different software to measure different liquid properties: liquid level, temperature, kind of liquid, acidity, viscosity, ice detection and more.

This kind of sensor will reduce the cost of systems by reducing the cost of their sensors. The two main reasons for the interest in this technology are:

Applications of the sensor
Diesel oil replacement in cars, boats an trucks	By measuring viscosity degradation, acidity and volume percentage of the liquid contaminants (i.e. water or fuel), it is possible to determine accurately when the diesel engine oil needs to be changed.
Level of liquid acid to clean computer chips	One of the present methods of determining the level of liquid acid is the use of pumps, Nitrogen tanks, pressure transducers and Teflon tubes. Such a sensitive system is costly in parts and maintenance time cost. Instead our microprocessor-based liquid sensor will have no moving parts and have health monitoring system. This means that for our sensor the part cost and the maintenance cost are minimal.
HVAC (for industrial compressors used in refrigeration)	Detecting oil level of industrial compressors used in refrigeration was performed with our sensor and with the capacity sensor. Since the foam that is generated from the refrigerant has a dielectric constant that is close to the dielectric constant of the oil, the capacitive sensor was not able to detect the oil level accurately. Moreover, it was not possible tocompensate for the air bubbles since the size and the air bubbles was random. In contrast our sensor has measured the oil level accurately in the presence of foam that has a dielectric constant that is close to the dielectric constant of the oil.
Aerospace application	The sensor can be used to measure the jet fuel level and temperature, to detect ice on the wings and to detect acidity in hydraulic lines. It also has the potential to detect fire in cabins and probably to measure the air speed during flight. Instead of using different technologies for measuring those different parameters in the aircraft, you can use our single technology. In this way the costs for development, production line set-up and maintenance are minimized. In the helicopters, it can also measure oil quality of the transmission to increase the life of the transmission itself.
Food refrigeration	The sensor can be used to detect ice on the cooling coils of the big food boxes in Supermarkets. It can probably also detect temperature and humidity at different locattions within the food box.
Underground liquid tanks	The sonsor can be used to detech leakage to the ground
Big tanks	The sensor can be used to measure liquid level
Bridges and roofs of houses	The sensor can be used to detect ice
Medical applications	Under evaluationm

Application of the technology in the car market
For diesel or regular fuel	fuel level, temperature (we can determine also the kind of fuel)
For engine oil	oil level, temperature, acidity degradation, percentage of condensed water in the oil and also oil acidity
For coolants	coolant level and temperature