Abstract

Currently available, threshold based, smoke alarms do not have the capability to distinguish between certain types of smoke particles (for example, flaming polyurethane) and nuisance sources like from cooking, steam from a shower, and so on. This application report describes a dual chip design, using the TPS8802 analog front end (AFE) ASIC, which is a UL recognized UTGT2.S36499 smoke alarm component, and the Arm Cortex-M0+ MSPM0L1306 microcontroller. This design enables making the distinction between real sources of smoke and nuisance sources to satisfy new UL217 requirements for smoke alarms. This document also includes test data showing measurements under simulated smoke and water vapor conditions.

Demo source code for this design is available in the latest MSPM0 SDK. An optional graphical user interface (GUI) allows developers to configure the AFE and observe the system response in real-time. The GUI is published in the TI Cloud Tools gallery.