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net ISSN (ONLINE): 2250-0758, ISSN (PRINT): 2394-6962

Volume-6, Issue-2, March-April 2016

International Journal of Engineering and Management Research
Page Number: 273-279

Development of a Digital Multimeter: A Low-Cost Design Approach

Mahfooz Ahmad1, Faizan Arif Khan2,Saifur Rahman3, Saima Rahman4
1
Faculty Member, Department of ECE, Integral University, Lucknow, INDIA
2
Assistant Professor, Department of EE, Integral University, Lucknow, INDIA
3
Assistant Professor, Department of EE University of Najran, Najran KSA
4
Assistant Professor, Department of CSE Integral University, LucknowINDIA4

ABSTRACT multimeter is designed to be operated at low cost with in

Measurement of electrical parameters like current
and voltage are crucial in field of measurement. Frequency
indicate the state of rhythmic behavior of signal and proper
change in system with respect to time. Multimeter are used in
measuring various electrical parameters including resistance,
capacitance and inductance. This paper shed lights on the
development of a low cost Multimeter using digital electronic
circuitry. The proposed device is able to measure various
electrical parameter in the certain specified range. A simple,
but highly accurate, sampling method for the measurement of
frequency in combination of other parameters are corporate
here by means of a digital multimeter(DMM). In modern
electronics laboratory a digital multimeter with high
precision and digital displaying mechanism is an essential
device. This paper describes the mechanism of a digital
multimeter that can measure electrical parameters in under
the particular range with specified resolution. accuracy of
digital multimeter discussed in this paper is quite good ,it can
be used where precise measurement at low cost is required.
Keywords--- Digital Multimeter, Voltage measurement,
Microcontroller AT89S52, ADC0809, current
measurement, frequency measurement
I. INTRODUCTION
A Digital Multimeter is an instrument used for
measuring electrical parameters between two points of an
electrical circuit. Voltage and current are a fundamental
quantity those are important in every phase of electrical
engineering from power systems to voltages inside VLSI
chip. Therefore measurement of voltage is an area of
concern in a wide range of discipline. Operating range may
vary depending on the area under consideration. In power
line voltage is in kV range, whereas voltage produced by
nerve cells is in mV range.[1] In this work, the Digital
273 Copyright © 2016. Vandana Publications. All Rights Reserved.
following range range and precision. Digital multimeters
are instruments that are used to measure electrical
quantities such as voltage, current, , frequency, capacitance
and resistance measurements. Basic functionality includes
measurement of potential in volts, resistance in ohms, and
current in amps. Multimeters are used to find electronic
and electrical problems. Advanced units come with more
features such as capacitor and diode . Here design &
development of microcontroller is based on digital multi-
meter with following capabilities
• DC Voltage Measurement 0-5VDC
• DC Current Measurement 0-1Amp
• Frequency Measurement 0-10KHz
• Resistance Measurement 0-1M Ohm
• Capacitance Measurement 0.1 – 10 µF
• AC Voltage Measurement 0-230V AC
Despite of the existence of a numerous
implementations of embedded system coding, designing a
digital multimeter (DMM) at low cost is still considered
as an innovative implementation. A digital multimeter is a
very necessary instrument in an electrical lab, for example
A voltmeter is an instrument used for measuring the
electrical potential difference between two points in an
electric circuit. At first analog meters were very popular
among the people for taking the reading of the electrical
parameters.[1] On later period, digital multimeter were
introduced and became popular, In this paper
microcontroller based low cost digital multimeter is
proposed paper is arranged in segregated manner for
measurement of each parameter.
II. METHODOLOGY
A multimeter is a combination of a multi range
DC voltmeter, multi range AC voltmeter, multi range
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ammeter, multi range ohmmeter and other electrical generated from existing AC supply. As shown in fig.2 For
parameter measuring circuit .This paper describe how to this purpose a step down transformer is used to reduce the
make a simple digital multimeter at low cost using a voltage near the desired value.
Microcontroller AT89S52. [2]The range of this DMM is
230/ Step Full Capa Voltag
discussed above in introduction section but the range can
be easily increased or decreased based on the requirements
just using the calibration process described in this project. AC Down Wave citor e
Trans Rectifi Regula
The AT89S52 microcontroller reads the input quantity
Filter
through one of the 8 analog channels and converts it to a
10-bit digital number using the internal ADC. Doing some
calculation with ADC conversion, this number can be Fig.2
converted to the actual measured voltage. The voltage is
displayed through a LCD display unit. IV. CONCEPT OF MODEL
III. FUNCTIONAL DISCRIPTION The device is manufactured using Atmel’s high-
density nonvolatile memory technology and is compatible
Proposed scheme of the Microcontroller Based with the industry-standard 80C51 instruction set and pin
Digital Multi-meter is as shown in block diagram having out. By combining a versatile 8-bit CPU with in-system
following section. programmable Flash on a monolithic chip, the Atmel
AT89S52 is a powerful microcontroller which provides a
Input Param Signal Analog Mic LC highly-flexible and cost-effective solution to many
Term eter Condi to roc D
embedded control applications. The AT89S52 provides the
standard features like 8K bytes of Flash, 256 bytes of
inal Select tionin Digital ontr
Dis RAM, 32 I/O lines, Watchdog timer, two data pointers,
three 16-bit timer/counters, a six-vector two-level interrupt
Fig.1 architecture, a full duplex serial port, on-chip oscillator,
and clock circuitry[3]. Microcontroller Atmel AT89S52 in
A. Parameter Selection Circuit: proposed scheme work as heart of the whole system ,
This section is responsible for the selection of proposed system can be understand with the help of ADC
the desired parameter and let the micro-controller know and a selector switch from which desired parameter is
about what action should be taken by microcontroller, as selected . Once desired parameter is selected it will go
here six different parameters are required to be measured through a series of signal conditioning circuit to processed
one at a time. as it is suitable for microcontroller. If any input is applied
B. Signal Conditioning Circuit: its measured value will be displayed on LCD display.
The purpose of this circuit is to process different
type of parameter so that they can be measured by
microcontroller. This section have many different kind of
circuit like amplifiers, attenuators, frequency multiplier,
precision rectifier, RC oscillators etc. All these are
required to convert our input parameter to a state which
can be measured by microcontroller without any problem.
C. Microcontroller AT89S52:
Microcontroller AT89S52 is used to read
different kind of parameter at its input through the
selection circuit. The main operation of microcontroller is
to read data from ADC or any other input as selected by
selection circuit. The measured data of whole scheme is
processed before displaying it on LCD in a user
understandable format.
D. LCD Display:
The LCD display is used to display the selected
operation and measured value of selected parameter at
input terminal.
E. Power Supply:
Proposed scheme require a DC power supply for
the operation of our system. This power supply can be Fig3

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V. ANALOG TO DIGITAL
CONVERTER
Analog to digital converter is one of the most
important part of proposed system, here ADC0809 Analog
to digital converter is preferred. The ADC0809 data
acquisition component is a Monolithic CMOS device with
an 8-bit analog-to digital converter,8-channel multiplexer
and microprocessor compatible control logic. The 8-bit
A/D converter uses successive approximation as the
conversion technique. The converter features a high
impedance chopper stabilized comparator, 256R voltage
divider with analog switch tree and a successive
approximation register. The 8-channel multiplexer directly
access any of 8-single-ended analog signals. The device
eliminates the need for external zero and full-scale
adjustments. The converter is partitioned into 3 major
sections: the 256R ladder network, the successive
approximation register, and the comparator.[4] The
ADC0809 is designed as a complete Data Acquisition
System (DAS) for ratio metric conversion systems. In ratio
metric systems, the physical variable being measured is
expressed as a percentage of full-scale which is not
necessarily related to an absolute standard The voltage
input to the ADC0809is expressed by the equation
V in /(V fs -V z ) = D x /(D max -D min )
V in = Input voltage into the ADC0809
V fs = Full-scale voltage
Vz = Zero voltage
Dx = Data point being measured
D max = Maximum data limit
D min = Minimum data limit
Easy interfacing to microprocessors is provided
by the latched and decoded multiplexer address inputs and
latched outputs. The design of the ADC0809 has been
optimized by incorporating the most desirable aspects of
several A/D conversion techniques.
VI. BLOCK DIAGRAM OF DIGITAL
MULTIMETER
Analog meters can measure voltage and current
using power from the test circuit in initial time but due to
observational error and other specific features DMM is
preffered that’s why a low cost design approach of a DMM
is proposed whose block diagram is shown in the fig.4.A
general purpose electronics DMM is generally considered
adequate for measurements at signal levels greater than
one millivolt or one microampere, or below about 100
megohms. These include voltmeters, ammeters and
ohmmeters, frequency meter and capacitance
measurement. These measurements are limited by
available technology in a combination of single
device(DMM),whose basic block diagram is shown in
fig.4 All quantities other than dc voltage are first converted
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ISSN (ONLINE): 2250-0758, ISSN (PRINT): 2394-6962
to an equivalent dc voltage by some device. To measure ac
voltage, the input ac is converted into a dc voltage by
means of a rectifier. Attenuator is used to bring the input
signals to the level acceptable by the multimeter. The
digital multimeter generally use compensated attenuator
for both ac and dc measurement “for resistance
measurement” a constant current is passes through the
resistance to be measured and the voltage developed across
it is measured and displayed in ohms.
Fig.4
VII. CIRCUIT DIAGRAM
Proposed model of digital multimeter is
preferable due to their accuracy, durability and extra
features. In a digital multimeter the signal under test is
converted to a voltage and an amplifier with electronically
controlled gain preconditions the signal. A digital
multimeter displays the quantity measured as a number,
which eliminates parallax errors. Proposed model of digital
multimeter have a Microcontroller, which provides a
wealth of convenience features. Measurement
enhancements available include Auto ranging, which
selects the correct range for the quantity under test so that
the most significant digits are shown. Sample and hold,
which will latch the most recent reading for examination
after the instrument is removed from the circuit under test.
Simple data acquisition features to record maximum and
minimum readings over a given period, or to take a
number of samples at fixed intervals The circuit diagram
of digital multimeter is given in fig5 The analog quantities
to be measured are converting into a train of pulses by A/D
converter and fed to the counter. These pulses are counted
by the counter and displayed by the display unit in decimal
number. The decimal number as indicated by the readout is
a measure of the value of the i/p quantity.
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is set to zero and then it builds up successively in equal

steps. When the internal voltage exceeds the sample
voltage the conversion process is over .Number of step
sizes required for the whole conversion is a digital code
that represents the sample voltage Therefore measurement
of voltage is an area of concern in a wide range of
discipline. Operating range may vary depending on the
area under consideration. In power line voltage is in kV
range, whereas voltage produced by nerve cells is in mV
range. In this proposed work, the multimeter is also
designated as voltage measuring instrument in
coordination with other electrical parameter measuring
instrument used for measuring the electrical potential
difference between two points. electrical circuit. in
multimeter for voltage measurement is designed as
follows.

(a)

Fig5

VIII. VOLTAGE MEASUREMENT IN

MULTIMETER
Voltage is a fundamental quantity which is
important in every phase of electrical engineering from (b)
power systems to voltages inside IC chip. Various physical
quantity that can be converted to voltage using sensors. Fig7
can be displayed on a voltmeter. Some basic methods for
estimating the value of an unknown voltage are IX. CURRENT MEASUREMENT IN
• Successive Approximation Method, MULTIMETER
• Staircase Method,
• Single-slope method, The DMM is a voltage sensing meter; current is
• Dual-slope method. converted to volts by passing it through a precision low
resistance shunt while ac is converted to dc at the AC
Unkno Precisio Micr LCD converter by employing rectifiers and filters. Most of the
AC converters detect the peak value of the signal and are
wn n ocon Displ calibrated to give the rms value of a sine wave. However,
AD
AC Rectifie trolle ay some measures the mean of the rectified signal such as the
C digital multimeter. Finally, this dc level is applied to the
V lt A/D converter to obtain the digital information. For
Fig.6 “current measurement”, the unknown current is passes
through a resistor. The voltage developed across the
In digital Ramp or Staircase method, the voltage resistor is measured. [6]The value of resistor is changed in
to be measured (sample voltage), where input voltage is steps according to the range. As shown in block diagram, a
continuously compared to a internally generated voltage, current to voltage converter is used for measurement of
which builds up gradually.[5] Initially the internal voltage

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current. The circuit for current to voltage converter is Unkn RC Microc LCD
shown in fig8b.
The current to be measured is applied to the summing own Oscill ontroll Displa
junction ‘A’ at the i/p of operational amplifier (Op Amp). ator er y
The ideal Op-Amp has very high i/p impedance, hence the R/C
current through the resistor IR is equal to the i/p current. (a)
The current IR causes a voltage drop across one of the
resistor, which is proportional to the current Ii. Different (a)
resistors are used for different ranges.

(b)

(a) Fig.9

XI. FREQUENCY MEASUREMENT IN

MULTIMETER
In this paper a simple, but highly accurate,
sampling method for the measurement of frequency by
means of a digital multimeter (DMM) is explained both
theoretically and from the applicative point of view. Two
important features of electrical signals in time domain are
(b) frequency and cycle, the measurement of which is an
important way to understand signals. Digital Multimeter
Fig.8 as used for frequency measurement, closely relating to
the measuring scheme of many electric parameters, has
been widely applied to electronic experiments. The design
X. RESISTANCE MEASUREMENT IN and preparation method of a self made frequency meter
MULTIMETER with high precision is introduced.[8] the whole design,
through by which the counting, display, frequency division
The circuit of resistance measurement in ratio and automatic range switching of the signals to be
multimeter is shown in Fig.9(a) The multimeter employs measured are controlled are shown in fig.10(b). simple, but
the internal battery. A series combination of fixed highly accurate, sampling method for the measurement of
resistance R14 and a pnp transistor Q1 is connected frequency.
across zener diode Z1 and whole circuit consist of the
fixed resistance R17 limits the current within the range Unkno Frequ Micr LCD
desired and variable resistance for zero-adjustment wn ency ocon Displa
reading. The resistance to be measured is connected
Frequ Multipl y
between terminals 1 and 2. The current flowing through trolle
the circuit will depend upon the value of resistor connected ency ier/Div
r
across the terminals.[7] The multimeter is generally made
multi range instrument by using different values of R . (a)

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(b)
Fig.10
XII. CAPACITANCE MEASUREMENT
IN MULTIMETER
Capacitance Measurement by digital multimeter
is based on Capacitance-to-Digital Converter System The
complete functional circuit diagram of the proposed
Capacitance Measurement is shown in Fig.11. It consists
of the modified circuit which passes a sinusoidal current
through the sensor providing a voltage .The circuit
includes the sensor having capacitance Cx and resistance
Rx along and known capacitance Cs as shown in Fig.11
The working principle of the converter is based on the
popular dual-slope ADC which consists of two phases of
operation, an auto-zero phase and a conversion phase.
[9]Measurement of the parameters of a sensor represented
by the RC series model usually involves passing a known
current through the sensor and recording the corresponding
output voltage across the sensor. Measurement circuits
based on Howland current source are presented in Precise
matching of resistors is essential for the Howland current
source to work efficiently. In case of any mismatch, the
current drawn would be influenced by the (load) capacitive
sensor . This is due to the fact that the output impedance
offered by the Howland current source is very high in case
of dc input
Fig.11
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XIII. CONCLUSION
The main advantage of the digital multimeter
described in this paper is that the measurements are
performed exactly according to the determination of power
and true rms voltage. The multimeter works with an
algorithm that is suitable for on-line measurements,
without the high computational burden as in The algorithm
is of an adaptable type and depends on the harmonic
content of the input signal and network frequency. The
dual-slope ADC converter with very simple and
inexpensive hardware, in contrast to the highly
sophisticated and expensive hardware described in meets
all price and accuracy requirements for the design of the
measurement system.[10]This reduces the price of the
entire device, while the high level of accuracy in
processing ac values is preserved, better than in some other
solutions ith excellent noise rejection. The necessary
synchronization is achieved by software measurements of
the frequency of the measured signal. The prototype of a
digital multimeter is being tested in the The precision limit
of the instrument was investigated theoretically,
experimentally and by simulation. Field experiments gave
excellent confirmation of the good application properties
of this instrument. By eliminating the sample-and-hold
circuit from the final design of the measuring system, a
possible source of systematic errors is eliminated and
hardware requirements are significantly simplified.
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www.ijemr.net ISSN (ONLINE): 2250-0758, ISSN (PRINT): 2394-6962

International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) ISSN

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