This reference design helps designers develop an ultrasonic gas-metering subsystem using an integrated, ultrasonic sensing solution (USS) module, which provides superior metrology performance, with low-power consumption and maximum integration. The design is based on the 64KB MSP430FR6043 microcontroller (MCU) with integrated high-speed ADC-based signal acquisition and an integrated low-energy accelerator (LEA) to optimize digital signal processing.

• Best-in-class metrology performance: ±250-ps zero-flow drift (ZFD) and 500-ps single-shot standard deviation across 200-kHz to 500-kHz transducers
• Low power consumption: <20 µA across 200-kHz to 500-kHz transducers with one set of comprehensive results per second
• Flexibility to operate with a variety of pipes and transducers
• Easy to test and customize using ultrasonic sensing design center graphical user interface (GUI) and Ultrasonic sensing (USS) software library
• ±1% flow accuracy up to 12000 lph with dynamic range of 200:1
• 3-lph minimum detectable flow rate
• Waveform capture based processing features:
  • Robust performance against variation of transducer characteristics over temperature
  • Ease of meter calibration, insensitive to transducer characteristic variations
  • Allows meter diagnostics like monitoring transducer aging and external noise interference
  • On-chip automatic gain control (AGC) allows dynamic implementation to handle changing transducer or gas environmental conditions

• Gas meters
• Flow transmitters