CN115754213A

CN115754213A - Environment monitoring device and method thereof

Info

Publication number: CN115754213A
Application number: CN202211091610.8A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 王博; 赵品志; 孟金磊
Original assignee: ABB Beijing Drive Systems Co Ltd
Current assignee: ABB Beijing Drive Systems Co Ltd
Priority date: 2022-09-07
Filing date: 2022-09-07
Publication date: 2023-03-07

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to an environment monitoring apparatus and a method thereof. The monitoring device includes: a sensor element (11) adapted to operate in a predetermined environment and to develop a corrosive condition; a resistive element (12) in series with the sensor element (11); a node (14) between the sensor element (11) and the resistive element (12), the node (14) being adapted to output a high level or a low level based on the corrosive condition; a controller (13) having a digital IO port (15), the digital IO port (15) being arranged to be connected to the node (14) directly or via an encoder, and the controller (13) being adapted to determine the corrosive condition based on a signal received by the digital IO port (15).

Description

Environment monitoring device and method thereof

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to the field of environmental monitoring, and more particularly, to an environmental monitoring apparatus and a method thereof.

Background

In application scenarios such as chemical plants, ocean platforms, water plants, etc., corrosion may occur for a long time due to corrosive gases existing in the surrounding environment, components or traces of electronic or electrical equipment, etc., which may cause unexpected shutdown of the electronic or electrical equipment and even production accidents.

Increasing the protection level of electronic or electrical equipment can reduce the risk of unintended shutdowns, but with a consequent substantial increase in costs. In addition to increasing the protection level, an unintended shutdown of the electrical or electronic equipment can be prevented by monitoring the degree of corrosion, i.e. monitoring the cumulative amount of corrosion to which the electrical or electronic equipment is exposed to a harsh environment, and an alarm can be issued when the cumulative amount of corrosion reaches a threshold value.

Disclosure of Invention

It is an object of the present disclosure to provide an improved environment monitoring device and method thereof, which may at least avoid the use of analog-to-digital converters of conventional solutions, thereby allowing cost savings.

According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, an environment monitoring device is provided. The apparatus includes: a sensor element adapted to operate in a predetermined environment and to develop a corrosive condition; a resistive element in series with the sensor element; a node between the sensor element and the resistive element, the node adapted to output a high level or a low level based on the corrosive condition; and a controller having a digital IO port (i.e. a digital input/output port) arranged to be connected to the node directly or via an encoder, and adapted to determine the corrosive condition based on a signal received by the digital IO port.

It will be appreciated that with the environmental monitoring apparatus of the present disclosure, measurement of corrosive conditions can be achieved in a cost effective manner. Specifically, compared with the conventional technical scheme, the scheme disclosed by the invention does not need to measure the analog semaphore, so that an expensive analog-digital converter or an expensive analog IO port is not needed. Furthermore, the solution of the present disclosure also does not require an additional excitation source.

In some embodiments, the node is grounded via a sensor element such that the node outputs the low level without the sensor element being corroded open. In this way, the node can simply be made to output a low level indicating that the sensor element has not been corroded open.

In some embodiments, the node is connected to a power supply terminal via a sensor element, so that the node outputs the high level in a case where the sensor element is not corroded to be disconnected. In this way, the node can simply be made to output a high level indicating that the sensor element has not been corroded open.

In some embodiments, the sensor element comprises a plurality of sensor elements and the resistive element comprises a plurality of resistive elements, wherein each sensor element has a corresponding resistive element connected in series therewith, a node between each sensor element and the corresponding resistive element is adapted to output a high level or a low level based on a corrosivity condition of the corresponding sensor element, and different nodes are correspondingly connected to different digital IO ports of the controller. In these embodiments, a graduated warning of the erosive condition to different extents can be achieved by different sensor elements.

In some embodiments, the plurality of sensor elements are each made of a conductive material of different thickness. It is readily understood that sensor elements of different thicknesses being corroded open may be used to indicate different levels of corrosive conditions.

In some embodiments, the plurality of sensor elements are connected in parallel to each other to the same power supply terminal or to ground. In this way, the arrangement of the plurality of sensor elements can be made simpler.

In some embodiments, the encoder comprises a priority encoder, the node between each sensor element and the corresponding resistive element being connected to an input of the priority encoder, an output of the priority encoder being connected to the digital IO port of the controller. In this way, more inputs from the sensor elements can be compressed into a smaller number of outputs before being connected to the controller, thereby saving the occupied digital IO port of the controller.

In some embodiments, the number of the plurality of sensor elements is in the range of 2 to 10.

In some embodiments, the sensor element, the resistive element, and the controller are all disposed on a circuit board. In this way, the arrangement of the entire environment monitoring apparatus can be made simpler and more convenient.

In some embodiments, the sensor element is a foil.

According to a second aspect of the present disclosure, an environmental monitoring method is provided. The method comprises the following steps: providing a series arrangement of a sensor element and a resistive element, wherein the sensor element is adapted to operate in a predetermined environment and to develop a corrosive condition; connecting a digital IO port of a controller directly or via an encoder to a node between the sensor element and a resistive element; powering the series arrangement such that the node outputs a high level or a low level based on the corrosive condition; and determining, by the controller, the corrosive condition based on the signal detected by the digital IO port.

According to a third aspect of the present disclosure, an electronic or electrical device is provided. The apparatus comprising an environmental monitoring apparatus according to the first aspect.

It should also be understood that the statements described in this summary are not intended to limit the key or critical features of the embodiments of the disclosure, nor are they intended to limit the scope of the disclosure. Other features of the disclosed embodiments will be readily apparent from the following description.

Drawings

The above and other features, advantages and aspects of various embodiments of the present disclosure will become more apparent by referring to the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like or similar reference characters designate like or similar elements, and wherein:

FIG. 1 shows a schematic structural diagram of an example environmental monitoring device according to a first embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 2 shows a schematic configuration diagram of an environment monitoring device according to a modified example of the first embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows a schematic structural diagram of an example environmental monitoring device according to a second embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows a schematic structural diagram of an example environmental monitoring device according to a third embodiment of the present disclosure; and

fig. 5 shows a flow chart of an environmental monitoring method according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

Embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in more detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. While certain embodiments of the present disclosure are shown in the drawings, it is to be understood that the present disclosure may be embodied in various forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein, but rather are provided for a more thorough and complete understanding of the present disclosure. It should be understood that the drawings and embodiments of the disclosure are for illustration purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure.

As previously mentioned, in some application scenarios, the environment may have a corrosive effect on the electronic or electrical equipment, which may cause an unexpected shutdown of the electronic or electrical equipment, or even a production accident. Monitoring devices have been developed for environmental corrosion conditions. Typically, the monitoring method uses a resistor without corrosion protection capability, and after the resistor is corroded, the corrosion amount of the resistor is determined by measuring analog quantities such as voltage (an additional current source needs to be added) or resistance value of the resistor.

However, the inventors found that: conventional environmental monitoring devices of this type are typically arranged to acquire an analog semaphore for the sensor element and then convert the analog semaphore to a digital semaphore using an analog-to-digital converter or directly occupying an analog port of the controller. The disadvantages of these conventional solutions are: 1. an additional current source needs to be added; 2. the analog-to-digital converters employed or the analog ports occupied are typically relatively expensive, which may disadvantageously increase the cost of the monitoring device or disadvantageously occupy expensive analog ports of the controller.

The conception of the present disclosure is: the principle that a sensor element, such as a metal foil, which can be corroded by the environment, is in an on state before being damaged by corrosion and becomes an off state after the amount of corrosion has accumulated to a certain extent is utilized to generate a proper level signal for a digital logic circuit. Specifically, since the cumulative amount of corrosion that a sensor element such as the foil can withstand is related to its thickness (e.g., the thicker the foil, the greater the cumulative amount of corrosion that it can withstand), the specified cumulative amount of corrosion can be monitored by whether a sheet of metal of a predetermined thickness has corroded open. The on/off signal fed back by the sensor element can be configured to be high or low for a digital logic circuit, so that it can be received directly by a digital IO port (i.e. a digital input/output port) or a digital circuit such as an encoder, thereby avoiding the use of an expensive analog-to-digital converter or occupying an expensive analog port and requiring no additional current source.

It should be noted that, herein, the high level or the low level is referred to the digital logic circuit. Generally, the high level is in the range of 2.5 to 5V, and the low level is in the range of 0 to 0.25V. In addition, the level range of the high level or the low level may vary for different digital logic circuits.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic structural diagram of an example environmental monitoring device according to a first embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in fig. 1, the environment monitoring apparatus 10 mainly includes a sensor element 11 and a resistance element 12, and a controller 13. Further, the sensor element 11 and the resistive element 12 are connected in series, and a node 14 between the sensor element 11 and the resistive element 12 is connected to a digital IO port 15 of the controller 13.

According to embodiments of the present disclosure, the sensor element 11 is any element that is adapted to be placed in a predetermined environment (e.g., a corrosive environment) and that is capable of a corrosive condition occurring accordingly. In general, the sensor element 11 is made of a conductive material of a predetermined thickness. As an example, the sensor element 11 may be a metal sheet of a predetermined thickness. It will be readily appreciated that thicker foils will be able to withstand greater amounts of corrosion in a corrosive environment. Thus, a suitable thickness of the sensor element 11 can be designed by means of tests and/or calculations, depending on the conditions of the cumulative amount of corrosion that the intended protected equipment can withstand in the environment.

The resistive element 12 may be placed in the predetermined environment (e.g., corrosive environment) described above with or without the sensor element 11. In particular, in embodiments where the resistive element 12 is also exposed to the predetermined environment (e.g., corrosive environment) described above, a resistive element having resistance to environmental corrosion may be selected. It is of course also possible to apply additional corrosion protection to the resistive element 12 or to select a resistive element with a greater resistance to environmental corrosion than the sensor element 11.

The purpose of the design according to the present disclosure is to adapt the node 14 between the sensor element 11 and the resistive element 12 to output a high level or a low level based on the corrosive condition of the sensor element 11, so that the digital IO port 15 of the controller 13 can directly receive the level signal output by this node 14. Therefore, any scheme is possible as long as the node 14 can be made to output a high level or a low level based on the corrosive condition of the corresponding sensor element 11.

For this reason, in this first exemplary embodiment, the end of the sensor element 11 located in the opposite direction to the node 14 may be arranged to be grounded, while the end of the resistance element 12 located in the opposite direction to the node 14 may be connected to the power supply terminal 16. That is, in this case, the node 14 may be connected to the IO port 15 in a pull-down manner. It will be readily appreciated that by selecting an appropriate voltage at the supply terminal 16 and an appropriate resistance value of the resistive element 12, it is ensured that: in the case where the sensor element 11 is not corroded off (i.e., turned on), the node 14 outputs a low level; and in the case where the sensor element 11 is corroded open, the node 14 outputs a high level. For example only, the supply terminal 16 may have a fixed voltage, such as 3.3v, for example.

It will also be readily appreciated that with the example environment monitoring apparatus 10 arranged as described above, corrosive conditions of the environment to the equipment intended to be protected may be readily monitored. For example, in the case where the sensor element 11 is not corrosion-off, the sensor element 11 is on, and the node 14 outputs a low level; as soon as the sensor element 11 is corroded away, the signal at the node 14 jumps to a high level, and the controller 13 can accordingly control the alarm to emit an alarm signal on the basis of the monitored level change. Merely by way of example, the alarm may be an indicator light or a buzzer, for example.

Fig. 2 shows a schematic configuration diagram of an environment monitoring device according to a modified example of the first embodiment of the present disclosure.

It can be seen that the structure of the environment monitoring device 20 of FIG. 2 is generally similar to the structure of the environment monitoring device 10 of FIG. 1, except that: the end of the sensor element 11 of fig. 2 located opposite to the node 14 is arranged to be connected to the supply terminal, while the end of the resistive element 12 located opposite to the node 14 is arranged to be connected to ground. That is, in this example, the node 14 is connected to the IO port 15 in a pull-up manner. It will be readily appreciated that by selecting an appropriate voltage at the supply terminal 16 and an appropriate resistance value for the resistive element 12 it is ensured that: in the case where the sensor element 11 is not corroded off (i.e., turned on), the node 14 outputs a high level; and in the case where the sensor element 11 is corroded off, the node 14 outputs a low level.

It will also be readily appreciated that with the example environment monitoring apparatus 20 arranged as described above, it is likewise convenient to monitor the corrosive conditions of the environment with respect to the equipment that is intended to be protected. For example, in the case where the sensor element 11 is not corrosion-off, the sensor element 11 is on, and the node 14 outputs a high level; as soon as the sensor element 11 is corroded open, the signal of the node 14 jumps to a low level, and the controller 13 can accordingly control the alarm to emit an alarm signal based on the monitored level change.

Fig. 1 and 2 above describe the environment monitoring principle of the present disclosure mainly by taking a single sensor element 11 as an example. In practice, it is also possible to provide a plurality of sensor elements and to monitor the corrosive conditions caused by the environment in stages with different sensor elements.

Fig. 3 shows a schematic structural diagram of an environmental monitoring device 30 according to a second embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in fig. 3, the environment monitoring device 30 includes a plurality of sensor elements 11, a plurality of resistance elements 12, and a controller 13. Further, wherein each sensor element 11 has a corresponding resistive element 12 connected in series therewith, a node 14 between each sensor element 11 and the corresponding resistive element 12 is connected to a different digital IO port 15 of the controller 13, respectively. By way of example only, fig. 3 shows 8

sensor elements

11, 8 resistive elements 12 and a corresponding number of digital IO ports 15. It will be readily appreciated that there may be a greater or lesser number of sensor elements, a plurality of resistive elements, or digital IO ports.

The purpose of the design according to the present disclosure is to adapt the node 14 between the sensor element 11 and the resistive element 12 to output a high level or a low level based on the corrosiveness condition of the corresponding sensor element 11, so that the digital IO port 15 of the controller 13 can directly receive the level signal output by this node 14. Therefore, any scheme is possible as long as the above-described node 14 can output a high level or a low level based on the corrosive condition of the corresponding sensor element 11.

In particular, in the example of fig. 3, the series arrangement of each sensor element 11 and the corresponding resistive element 12 is exactly the same as the series arrangement of the sensor elements 11 and the resistive elements 12 of fig. 2, namely: one end of each sensor element 11 located in the opposite direction to the node 14 is arranged to be connected to a supply terminal, while one end of each resistive element 12 located in the opposite direction to the node 14 is arranged to be connected to ground. That is, in this example, each node 14 is connected to the IO port 15 in a pull-up manner.

It is readily understood that in a variant embodiment of the third embodiment, it is also possible to arrange the series arrangement of each sensor element 11 and the corresponding resistive element 12 in fig. 3 in the same way as the series arrangement of the sensor element 11 and the resistive element 12 of fig. 1.

Further, it is also to be noted that, although in the example of fig. 3 all the sensor elements 11 are connected in parallel to the same power supply terminal and the resistive elements 12 are all connected to ground, in a modified embodiment it is also possible that different sensor elements 11 are connected to different power supply terminals, respectively, and the resistive elements 12 are connected to other low potentials than ground.

In the above-described embodiment in which a plurality of sensor elements are arranged, in particular, the plurality of sensor elements may be selected to be made of conductive materials (e.g., metal sheets) of different thicknesses. It will be readily appreciated that sensor elements of different thicknesses may be used to monitor the environment for different degrees of cumulative corrosion conditions, which may help to alert the grading of cumulative corrosion conditions.

By way of example only, sensor elements of different thicknesses may be arranged side-by-side, in a "line" configuration, such as shown in FIG. 3, and their thicknesses may increase or decrease in sequence. The respective thicknesses of these different sensor elements may be set, for example, according to the cumulative corrosion conditions that need to be monitored in stages.

For example, the thicknesses of the sensor elements No. 1 to No. 8 in the example of fig. 3 may be arranged in a sequentially increasing manner. It will be readily appreciated that in this case, the sensor elements will typically be corroded off sequentially in the environment. For example, in the case where the sensor element No. 1 is corrosion-disconnected, the node may output a level signal indicating a1 st cumulative corrosion level, and in the case where the sensor element No. 8 is corrosion-disconnected, the node may output a level signal indicating an eighth cumulative corrosion level, where the cumulative corrosion levels from 1 st to 8 th indicate that the cumulative corrosion condition caused by the environment is gradually severe. Thus, the controller 13 can determine the level of corrosion of the sensor element from the received level signal of the corresponding IO port, and perform maintenance on the device to be protected accordingly.

Thus, the second embodiment of fig. 3 described above is advantageous in that accumulated corrosion conditions of different degrees can be monitored and grading alarms output accordingly, but is disadvantageous in that more digital IO ports may be occupied.

To avoid the deficiency of fig. 3, fig. 4 shows a schematic structural diagram of an example environment monitoring device according to a third embodiment of the present disclosure.

The configuration of the environmental monitoring device 40 of FIG. 4 is similar to the configuration of the environmental monitoring device 30 of FIG. 3, but differs in that: the environment monitoring device 40 of fig. 4 further comprises a priority encoder 45, which priority encoder 45 may be connected between the IO port of the controller 13 and the node 14 between each sensor element 11 and the corresponding resistive element 12 as described above. More specifically, the node 14 between each sensor element 11 and the corresponding resistive element 12 is connected to the input of a priority encoder 45, while the output of the priority encoder 45 is connected to the IO port 15 of said controller 13.

It should be understood that the basic principle of the priority encoder 45 is to encode only the highest priority input. Thus, with the priority encoder 45, more inputs can be compressed into a fewer number of outputs, thereby saving digital IO ports of the controller 13.

The specific manner in which the present disclosure uses a priority encoder is described below by way of example only with respect to a priority encoder 45 (e.g., SN74HC 148) having 8 inputs and 3 outputs.

Specifically, 8 inputs of the priority encoder 45 are connected to 8 nodes 14 between the sensor elements 11 and the corresponding resistance elements 12, respectively, while 3 outputs are connected to 3 digital IO ports 15 of the controller 13, assuming that the input of the node corresponding to the sensor element to the further right in fig. 4 is set to be the input of higher priority.

A functional table of the priority encoder is given below.

TABLE 1

Where I0, \ 8230;, I7 respectively represent 8 inputs of the priority encoder 45, A0, A1, A2 respectively represent 3 outputs of the priority encoder 45, "1" represents that the corresponding input is at a high level, "0" represents that the corresponding input is at a low level, and "X" represents that the corresponding input may take any value of 0 or 1.

As can be seen from table 1, when the sensor element No. 111 is corroded open, the priority encoder outputs the coded value 111 (i.e., state 1); when sensor element No. 2 is corroded open, the priority encoder outputs the encoded value 110 (i.e., state 2) regardless of the corrosion condition of the previously numbered sensor element; by analogy, when sensor element No. 8 is corroded open, the priority encoder outputs a coded value of 000 (i.e., state 8) regardless of the corrosion condition of the previously numbered sensor element. These code values are different from each other and thus serve to indicate the case where different sensor elements are disconnected by corrosion.

In this way, the controller 13 can determine the corrosivity status of the sensor elements based on the 3 encoded value signals received by the 3 IO ports, and thus determine at what level the current accumulated corrosion is, and issue a corresponding alarm.

Although the environment monitoring device 40 of the present disclosure is described above in terms of a priority encoder, it should be understood that the above priority encoder is merely an example. In other embodiments, it is possible to use other types of encoders. Furthermore, it should also be understood that other digital logic arrangements than encoders are possible between the nodes and the IO ports of the above-mentioned controller 13.

A flow of an environment monitoring method according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure is described below with simple reference to fig. 5. It should be appreciated that the flow of the method may correspond to the environment monitoring device described above and achieve a corresponding technical effect.

As shown in fig. 5, at block 510, a series arrangement of a sensor element and a resistive element is provided, wherein the sensor element is adapted to operate in a predetermined environment and a corrosive condition occurs.

In some embodiments, the sensor element may be a metal sheet. The sensor element of a predetermined thickness may be selected for placement in the predetermined environment described above to monitor the amount of accumulated corrosion in the environment to which the equipment intended to be protected is subjected. The resistive element 12 may be placed in the predetermined environment (e.g., corrosive environment) described above with or without the sensor element 11. In some embodiments, the resistive element may be selected to have resistance to environmental corrosion.

In still other embodiments, the sensor element may include a plurality of sensor elements and the resistive element may include a plurality of resistive elements. Further, each sensor element may be connected in series with a corresponding resistive element. In embodiments having multiple sensor elements, the multiple sensor elements may have different thicknesses, whereby sensor elements of different thicknesses may be used to monitor different degrees of cumulative corrosion conditions caused by the environment, which may facilitate a graduated alert of the cumulative corrosion conditions.

According to the design of the present disclosure, the node between the sensor element and the corresponding resistance element arranged in series is intended to output a high level or a low level based on the corrosive condition.

At block 520, a digital IO port of a controller is connected to a node between the sensor element and the resistive element, either directly or via an encoder.

Since the node between the sensor element and the corresponding resistive element can output a high level or a low level based on the above-mentioned corrosiveness condition, in some embodiments, the digital IO port of the controller can be directly connected with the above-mentioned node, which is advantageous for avoiding the use of an expensive analog-to-digital converter. In still other embodiments, in the case of a larger number of inputs of the above-mentioned node, the larger number of inputs of the node can be compressed into a smaller number of outputs by the encoder, thereby saving the occupied digital IO port of the controller 13. In this way, it may be particularly advantageous for application scenarios where it is desirable to hierarchically monitor the cumulative corrosive conditions of an environment, and thereby provide corresponding hierarchical alerts.

At block 530, power is supplied to the series arrangement such that the node outputs a high level or a low level based on the corrosion condition.

Whether the node outputs a high level or a low level based on the corrosion behavior may depend on the specific circuit layout design.

For example, in embodiments where the node is grounded via the sensor element (i.e., the sensor element is connected in a pull-down manner), the node may output a low level if the sensor element is not corrosion-disconnected (or conductive) and a high level if the sensor element is corrosion-disconnected.

For another example, in an embodiment where the node is connected to the power supply terminal via the sensor element (i.e., the sensor element is connected in a pull-up manner), the node may output a high level if the sensor element is not corroded off (or turned on), and output a low level if the sensor element is corroded off.

Finally, at block 540, the corrosive condition is determined by the controller based on the signal detected by the digital IO port. Further, the controller may also control an alarm to sound an alarm based on the determined corrosivity condition.

The environmental monitoring device and associated method according to the present disclosure have been described above in detail. It will be readily appreciated that the scheme of the present disclosure has at least the following advantages over conventional approaches that often require measuring an analog signal quantity such as voltage, current or resistance:

● The cost is low: the solution of the present disclosure uses only a few inexpensive components (e.g., several metal foils or encoders) and, since the above-mentioned analog semaphore measurement need not be performed, there is no need to use expensive analog-to-digital converters and additional excitation sources.

● Grading the corrosion degree: the degree of corrosion may be indicated by the sensor elements of different thicknesses being broken by corrosion.

● The configuration is flexible: the grading level can be flexibly configured, for example, by increasing or decreasing sensor elements of different thicknesses, and different corrosive components (e.g., gases) in the same environment can be detected by providing different types of sensor elements.

● Can be directly mounted on the PCB: since all components associated with this solution are very small, it is easy to mount directly on the PCB.

Further, it should be understood that the flow of the methods described in this disclosure are merely examples. Although the steps of a method are described in a particular order in the specification, this does not require or imply that all of the illustrated operations must be performed in the particular order to achieve desirable results, but rather that the steps described change order of performance. Additionally or alternatively, certain steps may be omitted, multiple steps combined into one step execution, and/or one step broken down into multiple step executions.

While the invention has been illustrated and described in detail in the drawings and foregoing description, such illustration and description are to be considered illustrative or exemplary and not restrictive; the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. Other variations to the disclosed embodiments can be understood and effected by those skilled in the art in practicing the claimed invention, from a study of the drawings, the disclosure, and the appended claims.

In the claims, the word "comprising" does not exclude other elements, and the indefinite article "a" or "an" does not exclude a plurality. A single element or other unit may fulfill the functions of several items recited in the claims. The mere fact that certain features are recited in mutually different embodiments or dependent claims does not indicate that a combination of these features cannot be used to advantage. The scope of protection of the present application covers any possible combination of features recited in the various embodiments or in the dependent claims, without departing from the spirit and scope of the application.

Furthermore, any reference signs in the claims shall not be construed as limiting the scope of the invention.

Claims

1. An environment monitoring device comprising:

a sensor element (11) adapted to operate in a predetermined environment and to develop a corrosive condition;

a resistive element (12) in series with the sensor element (11);

a node (14) between the sensor element (11) and the resistive element (12), the node (14) being adapted to output a high level or a low level based on the corrosive condition; and

a controller (13) having a digital IO port (15), the digital IO port (15) being arranged to be connected to the node (14) directly or via an encoder (45), and the controller (13) being adapted to determine the corrosive condition based on a signal received by the digital IO port (15).

2. An environmental monitoring device according to claim 1, wherein the node (14) is connected to ground via a sensor element (11), such that the node (14) outputs the low level in case the sensor element (11) is not disconnected by corrosion.

3. An environment monitoring device according to claim 1, wherein the node (14) is connected to a supply terminal (16) via a sensor element (11), such that the node (14) outputs the high level in case the sensor element (11) is not corroded open.

4. An environmental monitoring device according to claim 1, the sensor element (11) comprising a plurality of sensor elements (11) and the resistive element (12) comprising a plurality of resistive elements (12),

wherein each sensor element (11) has a corresponding resistive element (12) connected in series therewith, a node (14) between each sensor element (11) and the corresponding resistive element (12) is adapted to output a high or low level based on a corrosive condition of the corresponding sensor element (11), and different nodes (14) are correspondingly connected to different digital IO ports (15) of the controller (13).

5. An environmental monitoring device according to claim 4, wherein the plurality of sensor elements (11) are each made of an electrically conductive material of different thickness.

6. An environment monitoring device according to claim 4, said plurality of sensor elements (11) being connected in parallel to each other to the same power supply terminal or to ground.

7. An environment monitoring device according to claim 4, wherein the encoder (45) comprises a priority encoder (45), the node (14) between each sensor element (11) and the corresponding resistive element (12) being connected to an input of the priority encoder (45), an output of the priority encoder (45) being connected to the digital IO port (15) of the controller (13).

8. An environmental monitoring apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the number of the plurality of sensor elements (11) is in the range of 2 to 10.

9. An environment monitoring device according to any of claims 1-8, the sensor element (11), the resistive element (12) and the controller (13) all being arranged on a circuit board.

10. An environment monitoring device according to any one of claims 1-8, wherein the sensor element (11) is a foil.

11. An environmental monitoring method, comprising:

providing a series arrangement of a sensor element (11) and a resistive element (12), wherein the sensor element (11) is adapted to operate in a predetermined environment and to develop a corrosive condition;

connecting a digital IO port (15) of a controller (13) directly or via an encoder to a node (14) between the sensor element (11) and a resistive element (12);

supplying power to the series arrangement such that the node (14) outputs a high level or a low level based on the corrosion condition; and

determining, by the controller (13), the corrosive condition based on the signal detected by the digital IO port (15).

12. An electronic or electrical device comprising an environmental monitoring device according to any one of claims 1-10.