Many systems include sensors that require to be periodically checked. The signals coming from these sensors are often low-power current or voltage signals. In battery-powered systems it is important to reduce the power consumption of the microcontroller. The Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) peripheral reads the signals while the microcontroller remains in Power Saving mode between measurements.
These Microchip Studio examples describe use cases for low-power current and voltage measurements on the AVR® EA family of microcontrollers:
- Low-Power AVR® EA Current Sensing Measurements
Measure a current by using the ADC peripheral - Low-Power AVR® EA Resistance Temperature Detector (RTD) Measurements
Measure a voltage by using the ADC peripheral
- Microchip Studio for AVR® and SAM Devices 7.0.2594 or newer
- Microchip AVR64EA48 Device Support Pack AVR-Ex_DFP v2.2.56 or newer
- AVR® GCC 5.4.0 compiler or newer
- Atmel Data Visualizer Standalone v2.20.674 or newer
The provided examples will give the user a better understanding of how to periodically measure a voltage or current signal from a sensor while consuming as little power as possible.