Sensor systems-interface between environment and application

The rapidly growing market for sensor systems on the one hand boosts the development of new sensor principles and technologies [1,2], on the other hand the increasing fields of use require an integration of these sensors on system level under a wide spread of application conditions. This paper will discuss the main tasks that have to be solved by the electronic system, which interfaces the sensor and the application environment [3,4]. On side of the sensor physical points of view dominate the requirements, which, e.g., call for low noise readout, high gain, minimum sensor loading, and compensation of crossensitivities. The application requires completely different considerations, like compatibility with former solutions, standardized interfaces, low power consumption or networking capability as well as cost efficiency. Between these completely different classes of requirements electronic circuitry operates as a mediator featuring sophisticated readout electronics for each type of sensor, intermediate signal processing layers, and customisable interfaces that are usable for all kinds of sensors. After the general consideration of the above topics some examples of sensor systems will be presented and the individual solutions of the mentioned challenge will be discussed from the circuit designers point of view. At last some approaches for future developments of sensor systems will be presented.