The sensor blocks
The sensors provide the CPU with input from the real world. Sensors are external peripherals that allow the system to sense the real world. They usually fall into two categories:
- Analog sensors
- Digital sensors
Analog sensors
Analog sensors usually trigger a change in their electrical characteristics (through a form of voltage divider or another physical effect) relative to the physical quantity they measure and provide the CPU with a variable voltage (sometimes amplified). This voltage is read through an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC), which is a peripheral within the CPU chip itself or an external chip.
A lot of real-world physical characteristics can be read through analog sensors, as shown in the following table:
There is an entire field of engineering dedicated to creating analog sensors. From a pentesting point of view, it is always interesting to research how they work since it can...
