Evaluation and Testing of an Intelligent Methane Detecting System

This paper describes the development of a mini intelligent methane sensor system to be used as a sensing node to assure a safe work environment in underground coal mines. Machine-mounted methane monitors must be used to continuously monitor methane levels during mining. The weak output signal from the Wheatstone bridge circiut often corrupts by sensor offset, noise, temperature and aging drift. This paper analyzed the main techniques of the developing Intelligent methanometer, such as automatic calibration, offset cancellation, sensitivity correction of the methane sensor's nonlinear and the influence of O-2 concentrations, and evaluated the performance of the methane measuring system. The experimental results and industry testing has shown that the capability of our system met with the requirement of standard for safety produce in coal mine. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of [CEIS 2011]