Quantitative Assessment and Compensation of Temperature-induced Errors in Load Cell Measurements Using Thermal Drift and Hysteresis Analysis

Abstract

Load cells being essential components of weighing systems, their performance is significantly influenced by environmental variations, particularly temperature fluctuations. Low-cost load cells are widely adopted in IoT-based applications where affordability and accessibility are prioritized. However, their sensitivity to temperature limits their reliability for small-weight precision measurement. To address this, the study investigates the effect of ambient temperature on a 10 kg load cell operating in the range of 200 g to 1000 g, subjected to heating and cooling cycles between 15 deg. C and 35 deg. C. Experimental observations revealed that the raw load cell output exhibited a maximum drift across 2.5% across the 20 deg. C variation, indicating significant temperature dependance. Additionally, hysteresis between heating and cooling cycles contributed an average error of 1.2%, highlighting the challenge of repeatability under changing thermal conditions. Designing of temperature compensation strategy was done and implemented with IoT-enabled weighing system. The compensation reduced the error to below 0.5%. The result establishes the importance of combining the compensation technique with load cell to achieve performance comparable to higher-grade sensors at a fraction of the cost. The study demonstrates a practical and affordable solution to extend the applicability of low-cost sensors for precision-oriented applications in agriculture, small-scale packaging, and industrial quality control.