Suppressing interference in a pressure sensor circuit

Question

I just looked over a circuit designed by my predecessor, which is used to interface with a pressure sensor. It works, but I have some doubts about the way the input filtering is done. The simplified schematic looks like this:

^{simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab}

The pressure sensor has a differential, low level and relatively high-impedance output (up to 25kOhm) which is scaled up into a larger differential signal by those amplifiers. A differential amplifier at the output (not shown) then turns this signal into a single-ended one. In other words, this is part of a normal three-amp instrumentation amplifier.

The gain setting resistor is part of the pressure sensor, and it is factory-calibrated (between 2.5kOhm and 12.5kOhm) so that it compensates the variation of the full-scale output in each individual sensor. This way, replacing the sensor will not change the output much even though each sensing element has a different full-scale output. In order for this to work, R1 and R2 need to be 100kOhm.

This is all according to an applicaiton note (TN-003 by ICSensors) which I unfortunately couldn't dig up on the internet just now. However, my predecessor added the capacitors C1 and C2, probably to suppress interference issues we saw in tests - the sensor is connected via an unshielded cable inside our device, and since the feedback line to the gain resistor has such a high resistance going to it, it looks like a good candidate for picking up noise.

The output does not need to be fast (~1Hz is fine), so rejecting high frequencies seems like a good idea. However, seeing a large capacitor between a pair of op amp inputs makes me uncomfortable. I plopped this circuit into LTSpice and saw that it is stable (even with much larger capacitors), but it rings a lot due to a resonance at ~4.2kHz.

Now I'm wondering, wouldn't it be better to put C1 and C2 parallel to R1 and R2 instead? That way, the resistance of the gain feedback line would be lowered at high frequencies, and the amplifiers would somewhat attenuate high frequencies, too. The simulation looks good, but since I'd still consider myself a novice I'd appreciate some confirmation whether this is a good solution or if I'm overlooking something.

Answer 1

Yes, putting C1 and C2 in parallel to R1 and R2 provides good RF rejection on the gain resistor lines.

I built the circuit and did some "poor man's EMC testing" by attaching a long cable to the sensor and wrapping it around my mobile phone, then calling the mailbox. The result of the modified circuit were very good, showing only a small increase in noise, while an alternative configuration showed readings all over the place.

Answer 2

Just as a second opinion putting caps across the inputs of each op amp is one good method to stop noise. The more noise the more exotic the filtering needs to be. As long as the circuit works at the current noise level no more filtering is needed. Putting Caps in parallel with R1 and R2 would increase negative feedback at high frequencies, but why change what works.