Under the conditions of low flow rate and strong noise, the current electromagnetic flowmeter (EMF) cannot satisfy the requirement for measurement or separate the actual flow signal and interference signal accurately. Correlation detection technology can reduce the bandwidth and suppress noise effectively using the periodic transmission of signal and noise randomness. As for the problem that the current anti-interference technology cannot suppress noise effectively, the noise and interference of the electromagnetic flowmeter were analyzed in this paper, and a design of the electromagnetic flowmeter based on differential correlation detection was proposed. Then, in order to verify the feasibility of the electromagnetic flow measurement system based on differential correlation, an experimental platform for the comparison between standard flow and measured flow was established and a verification experiment was carried out under special conditions and with flow calibration measurements. Finally, the data obtained in the experiment were analyzed. The research result showed that an electromagnetic flowmeter based on differential correlation detection satisfies the need for measurement completely. The lower limit of the flow rate of the electromagnetic flowmeter based on the differential correlation principle could reach 0.084 m/s. Under strong external interferences, the electromagnetic flowmeter based on differential correlation had a fluctuation range in output value of only 10 mV. This shows that the electromagnetic flowmeter based on the differential correlation principle has unique advantages in measurements taken under the conditions of strong noise, slurry flow, and low flow rate.
Keywords: correlation detection; differential amplification; electromagnetic flowmeter; weak signal detection.