Texas Instruments MSP430 family of microcontrollers (MCUs) integrate an ultrasonic-sensing analog front end that enables smart water meters to achieve higher accuracy levels and lower power consumption. The company also offers two reference designs that simplify designing modules for adding automated meter reading (AMR) capabilities to existing mechanical water meters.
The MSP430FR6047 MCUs family offer a complete waveform capture feature and analog-to-digital converter (ADC)-based signal processing. This technique allegedly enables more accurate measurement than comparable devices, with a precision of 25 ps or better, even at flow rates less than 1 liter per hour. The devices also reduce water meter system component count by 50% and power consumption by 25%. Other MCUs features include an integrated, low-energy accelerator module for advanced signal processing, 256 KB of ferroelectric random access memory, a liquid crystal display driver, and a metering test interface.
For more specs and features, an MSP430FR6047 datasheet is available. For more details, contact Texas Instruments Inc., Dallas, TX. 972-995-2011 or 512-434-1560.