A novel helical electrode type capacitance level sensor for liquid level measurement

This paper presents an implementation of a novel capacitance level sensor. The objective of the proposed work is to design a capacitive level sensor (CLS) which will have improved sensitivity and reduced sensor delay as compared to existing design. Performance analysis of the exiting parallel rod and cylindrical type sensors is carried to understand the characteristics in terms of sensitivity and sensor delay. A novel design with variations in electrodes structure from conventional design to helical structure is proposed in this work. Theoretical computation and practical validation of the designed CLS shows better performance in comparison to existing sensors. Improvement in sensitivity is found to be more than 99.99%in comparison to cylindrical and parallel rods. Helical type sensor response time is quicker by 27.73 s in comparison to cylindrical and by 6.46 s in comparison to parallel rod CLS. Also the effect of change in liquid type and liquid temperature on sensor output is analysed and results showed increased sensor output for higher permittivity and temperature of liquid. (c) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.