SUGISAKAMASANORI

Journal of Advances in Artificial Life Robotics
Vol. 1(2); September (2020), pp. 81–85
ON LINE ISSN 2435-8061; ISSN-L 2435-8061
https://alife-robotics.org/jallr.html

Research Article

A Design of Polyurethane-Material-based Film Forming Rate
Measuring Instrument
Fengzhi Dai1,2, Jichao Zhao1

Tianjin University of Science and Technology, China
Tianjin Tianke Intelligent and Manufacture Technology CO., LTD, China

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ARTICLE INFO
Article History
Received 25 October 2019
Accepted 29 June 2020
Keywords
Measurement instrument
Film formation rate
ATmega328P
BH1750ABSTRACTThe polyurethane materials have been widely used in the field of antibacterial, medical,waterproof and moisture permeable. Therefore, this paper mainly studies on the determination of
the film formation rate of polyurethane, and designs a film formation rate measuring instrument
based on the Atmega328P single chip microcomputer and BH1750 light intensity measurement
chip. This design compares the advantages and disadvantages of the currently widely used film
formation rate measuring instrument and improves its multiple sensors into a high-precision mainsensor. Measurement requirements are reduced, and the size of the instrument is also reduced,
making it easier and more portable. Moreover, it can be used not only to measure the film
formation rate of polyurethane, but also to determine the film formation rate of other materials.

© 2022 The Author. Published by Sugisaka Masanori at ALife Robotics Corporation Ltd.
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

1. Introduction

intensity sensor is connected to the acquisition controller,
and the acquisition controller is connected to the dataprocessing computer [2].
The device measures the change of light intensity
through the membrane during phase separation, thus themembrane curve is generated. The test instrument iscompact, small in size, easy to be used and more suitable
for a variety of measurement environments. It can be used
not only in the film forming rate measurement experiment,
but also in other experiments that need to measure the lightintensity.

Polyurethane microporous films are widely used in daily
life as high-end or special fabrics due to their opticaltransparency, strong ductility, durability, ease ofprocessing, and water permeability [1]. The film-forming
rate of the casting film in different coagulation baths isdifferent, and the film-forming rate has a significant effecton the membrane pore size and other indicators. At present,
the instruments used to measure the film formation rate aremanually measured by humans, which results in large
errors and inaccuracy.
The presented new film-forming rate measurement
instruments include specific light source, light-intensity
acquisition sensor, microcontroller and data processing
computer. When making the film, on the glass plate thecast film liquid is scraped into a film and the container's
solidification bath. The specific light source is directly set
above the polymer cast film liquid, light intensity sensor is
located directly below the container. The intensity of the
projected light is measured by the light sensor, light

2. The hardware structure design
2.1. The controller
Arduino is a convenient, flexible and easy-to-use open
source hardware product with rich interfaces, including
digital I/O ports, analog I/O ports, and support for SPI, IIC,
UART serial communication. It can sense the environment
by connecting sensors and feed power and affectCorresponding author’s E-mail: daifz@tust.edu.cn URL: www.tust.edu.cn81

reducing workload, improving readability, easy debugging,
modification and porting, and the quality of the code iscomparable to the assembly language. The C language isusually only 10%-20% less efficient than the target
program generated by assembly language code. Therefore,
the system is written in C language.
C# is a safe, stable, simple and elegant object-oriented
programming language, and is derived from the C and C++.
It inherits the power of C and C ++, while removing somecomplex functions (for example, no macros, multiple
inheritance is not allowed). C# combines the simple visual
operation of VB with the high efficiency of C++, andbecomes the preferred language for NET development.
Therefore, the upper computer used in this system isdeveloped by the C# language.

environment by controlling lights, motors and otherequipment [3].
It has no complex micro-computer underlying code anddifficult assembly. In addition, it has a simple integrated
development environment, freedom and scalability.
Standardized interface models provide a solid foundation
for their sustainable development. Developers havedeveloped many application libraries, so we need notoperate registers directly, for those who don't have a goodknowledge of MCU can also use Arduino to do what theywant.
2.2. Data acquisition sensor
The GY-30 data acquisition module shown in Figure 1
uses the BH1750FVI chip, and has the power supply
voltage 3-5V, light intensity range 0-65535lx, sensor builtin 16bit AD converter, and direct digital output, omit
complex calculations, omitted calibration. Without
distinguishing between the ambient light sources and close
to the spectral characteristics of visual sensitivity, a wide
range of brightness can be measured with high precisionof 1 lux. By using the standard NXP IIC communication
protocol, this module contains the communication level
conversion and can be directly connected to the 5V
microcontroller IO.

3. Hardware circuit
The hardware circuit is mainly composed of theATmega328P microcontroller control module, GY-30light intensity acquisition module and key input module.
GY-30 light intensity module is used to collect ambient
light intensity information. The ATmega328P
microcontroller control module is responsible foranalyzing and processing the signals collected by thesensors, and then transmitting the data to the computer
through a serial data transmission line. Simple structure,strong portability, and convenient for secondary update
and modification is the advantage of the system.
3.1. ATmega328P microcontroller control module
The ATmega328P is used as the main control chip and therequired drive chip operation of the crystal-vibration
circuit, as well as the reset circuit [4]. The single-chip
control module is mainly responsible for receiving theacquisition signal that is transmitted from outside,
analyzing and processing the collected data, and sending
control signals to the subsequent circuits to realize thecontrol of each module. The ATmega328P chip is shownin Figure 2.

Fig.1. WIFI module

2.3. Development language
The C language is a process-oriented programming
language that differs from Java, C++ and other objectoriented programming languages. The goal of the C
language is primarily to provide a language that compiles
in a simple way, handles low-level memory, generates
only a small amount of machine code and runs without theneed for any support from the operating environment. C isfaster than assembly language in describing problems,

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range of brightness with high accuracy of 1 lux, and theresponse is more sensitive. Through the optimization
design of the program algorithm, it can achieve thefunction of self-timing of the instrument, greatly reduce
the error caused by manual measurement time, and makethe data more accurate shown in Figure 4.

Fig.4. BH1705 chipFig.2. ATmega328P chip

3.2. Power circuit

4. The experiment

The RT9193 chip is chosen to be the power adapter. Themain electric 12V through the transformer in the adapter isto buck the pressure, and then through the bridge circuit toconvert 12V into DC 5V output [5]. The 5V voltage is tothe microcontroller, liquid crystal display module, buzzer
module and other circuits as the power. The RT9193 chipis very small in size shown in Figure 3, and is suitable forour compact circuit board design. Although its rated power
is only 1.5W, it is enough for our device.

4.1. Experimental process(1) Connect the film formation rate tester and the computer
via a USB cable. (2) Open the computer-side test software,
first select the communication port connected to theinstrument, so as to connect the computer and theinstrument. And then select the acquisition speed required
for this test, the rate range is 0-99 times per second. (3)Then place the sample to be tested in the corresponding
position, click "Start Measurement", the tester starts towork. (4) As the test time increases, the film formation rate
curve gradually appears. When the curve is stable, click"Stop Measurement". (5) Fill in the environmental factorsof this test on one side, choose whether to remove theinfluence of ambient light according to the test needs, andfinally click "Save Image" to generate a test report.
4.2. Experimental result

Fig.3. RT9193 regulation circuit

When the liquid film of the casting film liquid contacts thecoagulation bath, the solvent on the surface and inside ofthe liquid film is extracted by the coagulation bath. Due tothe precipitation of the liquid film, it gradually changes
from transparent to white, so the intensity of the lighttransmitted through the liquid film decreases accordingly.
The start time of phase separation is the time when thetransmission intensity starts to decrease. When thetransmission intensity drops to a certain stable value, phaseseparation is considered complete, and the voltage value

3.3. Data acquisition circuit
In this design, the GY-30 light intensity collector withbh1750fvi chip is used, which can measure the lightintensity in the range of 0-65535 lux and has a large
measurement range. The illumination intensity range usedin our experimental environment is 100-1500lux, and themodule fully meets the measurement requirements.
In the measurement process, it does not distinguish theenvironmental light source, and is close to the spectral
characteristics of visual sensitivity. It can measure a wide83

Acknowledgements

drops to a certain stable value. Over time, it graduallybecame stable.
This phase separation film formation rate tester is used tomeasure the change in light intensity transmitted throughthe film during the phase separation (the film formation
curve). This curve reflects the initial transmittance and theend transmittance of the solidified liquid film and the timeinterval used. The collection time can be adjusted
appropriately according to the extraction rate of different
coagulation baths. Import the data into an Excel
spreadsheet and set it as the relationship curve between
time and light intensity change. For example, when
polyurethane is formed into a film, distilled water andmethanol are used as coagulation baths, as shown inFigures 5 and 6.

The research is partly supported by the Project of Tianjin
Enterprise Science and Technology Commissioner toTianjin Tianke Intelligent and Manufacture TechnologyCo., Ltd (19JCTPJC53700). It is also supported by theIndustry-University Cooperation and Education Project(201802286009) from Ministry of Education, China.
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Fig.5. Distilled water bath curve

Authors Introduction
Dr. Fengzhi Dai

He received an M.E. and Doctorof Engineering (PhD) from the
Beijing Institute of Technology,
China in 1998 and Oita
University, Japan in 2004
respectively. His main researchinterests
areartificialintelligence, pattern recognitionand robotics.He worked in
National Institute of Technology,Matsue College, Japan from2003 to 2009. Since October 2009, he has been the staff in
Tianjin University of Science and Technology, China,
where he is currently an associate Professor of the Collegeof Electronic Information and Automation.

Fig.6. Methanol water bath curve

The absolute value of the slope can reflect the speed of
the film formation rate of the process, that is, the greater
the increase in the light intensity value during the sametime period in the light projection curve, the faster the film
formation rate of the system, the more solidified into theshorter the time taken by the film.

84Mr. Jichao Zhao

He is a first-year mastercandidate in Tianjin Universityof Science and Technology.
His research is about deeplearning, pattern recognition.

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