A novel readout system for microacoustic viscosity sensors

Microacoustic SAW and BAW sensors have proved to be well suited for viscosity sensing in liquids. While research on these sensors has reached a fairly advanced state, they still did not enter industrial and consumer applications, which is mainly caused by the lack of availability of dedicated readout electronics. In this contribution we present a readout concept, which leads to a robust and cost-effective viscosity measurement system as required by practical applications. We discuss the concept in detail and illustrate its performance by means of experimental results.