A Method for Automatic Characterization and Measurement of Ceramic Materials Using Virtual Instrumentation

This paper describes a new method for measuring and characterizing electrical parameters of ceramic materials. In addition, a comparison of experimental results obtained by manual measurement and an application of a new method for characterizing doped BaTiO₃ ceramics at different temperatures and frequencies was performed. An LCR meter and a programmable testing furnace were used to measure the material’s dielectric parameters as a function of temperature. When measuring the parameters using the manual method, the results were obtained by manual control of the LCR meter, that is, they were measured by manually setting the parameters. The results were compared with those obtained using a new method for automatic control of the LCR meter, for which an application was developed. This comparison shows that feature measurement can be done fully automatically. By measuring samples of Er/BaTiO₃ doped ceramics, it was possible to compare the results obtained by both methods. Based on the analysis of the measured results, it can be concluded that the new method is more precise, and the results are easier to manipulate in further work. In addition, the new method enables greater reproducibility of measurements, compared to the application of the manual method, which allows one measurement to be performed during the day. The described new method provides the possibility to measure material characteristics without the presence of a human factor.