TI introduces the most accurate single-chip ultrasonic sensing MCUs for smart water meters

Texas Instruments unveiled a new family of MSP430™ microcontrollers with an integrated ultrasonic sensing analog front end that enables smart water meters to deliver higher accuracy and lower power consumption. In addition, TI introduced two new reference designs that make it easier to design modules for adding automated meter reading (AMR) capabilities to existing mechanical water meters. 

The new MSP430FR6047 MCU family lets developers add more intelligence to flow meters by taking advantage of a complete waveform capture feature and analog-to-digital converter (ADC)-based signal processing. This technique enables more accurate measurement than competitive devices, with precision of 25 picoseconds or better, even at flow rates less than 1 liter per hour.

In addition, the integrated MSP430FR6047 devices reduce water meter system component count by 50 percent and power consumption by 25 percent, enabling a meter to operate without having to charge the battery for 10 or more years. The new MCUs also integrate a low-energy accelerator module for advanced signal processing, 256 kB of ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM), a liquid crystal display (LCD) driver and a metering test interface (more info).