238 ‘A Textbook of Mechatronics Charging Selenium wire ag, ‘coated drum Rotating mirror Fusing roller transferred Paper gfx toner on paper to paper Fig. 3.494 Laser printer's basic elements. — As the drum passes the toner reservoir, the charged areas attract particles of toner which thus stick to the areas that have not been exposed to light and do not stick on the areas that have been exposed to light. — The paper is given a charge as it passes another charging wire, the so called corona wire, so that as it passes close to the drum it attracts the toner off the drum. A hot fusing roller is then used to melt the toner particles so that, after passing between rollers, they finely adhere to paper. 3.11.7. Magnetic Recording The use of ‘magnetic recording’ is restored to store data on the floppy disc and hard discs of computers. The basic principles are that a recording head, which responds to the input signal, produces corresponding magnetic patterns on a thin layer of magnetic material and a read head gives an ‘output by converting the magnetic patterns on the magnetic material to electrical signals. Besides these heads the systems require a transport system which moves the magnetic material in a controlled way under the heads. 1. Magnetic recording codes : © In digital recording, the signals are recorded as a coded combination of bits. © A bit cell is the element of the magnetic coating where the magnetism is either completely saturated in one direction or completely saturated in the reverse direction. Saturation is when the magnetising field has been increased to such an extent that the magnetic material has reached its maximum amount of magnetic flux and further increases in magnetising current produce no further change. © For getting proper flux reversals, some of the commonly used methods (involving encoding) are : (i) Phase encoding (PE); (ii) Non-return-to-zero (NRZ); (iii) Frequency modulation (FM); (iv) Modified frequency modulation (MFM); (v) Run length limited (RLL). Optimum code is the one that allows the bits to be packed as close as possible and which can be read without error. The read head can locate reversals quite easily but they must not be too close together.‘Signal Conditioning; Data Acquisition, Transmission and Presentation/Display 239 — The RLL code has the advantage of being more compact than the other codes, PE and FM taking up the most space. — MEM and NRZ take up the same amount of space. NRZ has the disadvantage of, unlike the other codes, not being self locking. 2. Magnetic discs : Digital recording is commonly done on a floppy or hard disc. The digital data is stored on the disc surface along concentric circles called tracks, a single disc having many such tracks. A single read-write head is used for each disc surface and heads are moved, by means of a mechanical actuators, backwards and forwards to access different tracks. The disc is spum by the drive and the read/write heads read or twrite data into a track. The 3.5 “floppy disc” used in the personal computer can store 1.4 Mbytes of data. “Hard discs”. These are sealed units with data stored on the disc surface along concentric circles. — A hard disc assembly has more than one such disc and the data is stored on magnetic coatings on both sides of the discs. — The discs are rotated at high speeds and tracks assessed by moving the read- write heads. — Large amounts of data can be stored on such assemblies of discs; storage of the order of many G bytes are now common. 3.11.8. Display Systems Several display systems use light indicators to indicate on-off status or give alphanumeric displays. ‘Some of these display systems are enumerated and briefly di. -- -d below: 1, Light indicators. 2. LED displays. 3. A5 by 7 dot matrix LED display. 4. Liquid crystal displays. 1. Light indicators : For such displays, the light indicators may be neon lamps, incandescent lamps, light- emitting diodes (LEDs) or liquid crystal displays (LCDs). © Neon lamps need high voltages and low currents and can be powered directly from the mains voltage but can only be used to give a red light. © Incandescent lamps can be used with a wide range of voltages but need a comparatively high current. They emit white light to use lenses to generate any required colour. Their main advantage is their brightness. © LEDs (light-emitting diodes) require low voltages and low currents and are cheap. — These diodes when forward biased emit light over a certain band of wavelengths. — The most commonly used LEDs can give red, yellow or green colours. — With microprocessor-based systems, LEDs are the most common form of indicators. 2. LED displays: — With a LED a current-limiting resistor is generally required in order to limit the current to below the maximum rated current of about 10 to 30 mA.240 ‘A Textbook of Mechatronics — Some LEDs are supplied with built in resistors so they can be directly connected to microprocessor systems. — LEDs are available as single light displays, seven-and-sixteen-segment alphanumeric displays, in dot matrix format and bar graph form. 3. A'5 by 7 dot matrix LED display: In this type of display the array consists of five column connectors, each connecting the anodes of seven LEDs. Each row connects to the cathodes of five LEDs. To turn on a particular LED, power is applied to its column and its row is grounded. 4, Liquid crystal displays : Such displays are used in battery-operated devices such as watches and calculators. — Five by seven dot matrix forms are also available. 1. The signal conditioning equipment may be required to perform the following functions on the transduced signal : () Amplification (ii) Modification or modulation (iii) Impedance matching (iv) Data processing (v) Data transmission. . An amplifier is a device which is used to increase or augment the weak signal. . An operational amplifier (Op-amp) is a linear integrated circuit (IC) that has very high voltage gain, a high input impedance and a low output impedance. |. Filtering is process of attenuating unwanted components of a measurement while permitting the desired component to pass. 5. A good display, functionally, is one which permits the best combination of speed, accuracy and sensitivity when transferring the necessary information from the instrument to the operator. 6. The electrical indicating instruments may be classified as: (i) Analog instruments. (ii) Digital instruments. 7. Essential features of indicating instruments are : () Deflecting device. (ii) Controlling device. (iii) Damping device. 8. The digital instruments indicate the value of the measurand in the form of decimal numbers whereas the analog instruments display the quantity to be measured in terms of deflection of a pointer i.e, an analog displacement or an angle corresponding to the electrical quantity. . The digital meters work on the principle of “quantization”. 10. A digital instrument can be considered as a counter which counts the pulses in a predetermined time. 11. A numerical indicator tube (NIT) consists of a gas filled glass tube having ten cathodes in the form of numbers and an anode. 12. A recorder records electrical and non-electrical quantities as a function of time. Two types of recorders are : en » 2Signal Conditioning; Data Acquisition, Transmission and Presentation/Display 241 13. 14. 15. ( Analog recorders. (ii) Digital recorders. Instruments that record change of only one measured variable are called single point recorders. A multi-point recorder may have as many as 24 inputs, with traces displaced in 6 colours. A X-Y recorder is an instrument which gives a graphic record of the relationship between two variables. Cathode ray oscilloscope (CRO) is an instrument which presents signal waveforms visually. It is also useful for comparing two signals in phase, frequency or amplitude. OBJECTIVE TYPE QUESTIONS Choose the Correct Answer : The closed loop gain of an Op-amp is dependent upon whether the Op-amp is used (a) in inverting mode (6) in non-inverting mode (0) is independent of the fact whether the input is connected to inverting or non-inverting terminal. (@) is dependent upon the fact whether the input 1s connected to inverting or the non- inverting terminal. . A buffer amplifier has gain of (@) infinity (b) zero (0) unity (@) dependent upon the circuit parameters AC. amplifiers are best suited for (@) steady-state signals (b) low frequency signals (© rapidly varying signals (@) none of these. The amplifier drift and spurious noise signals are not significant in (@) ac. amplifiers (b) dc. amplifiers (©) charge amplifiers (@) none of these. In a carrier system, drift and spurious signals are important (a) because they modulate the carrier (b) because they do not modulate the carrier (©) because it is easier to achieve a stable carrier than a stabilized d.c. source. (@) none of the above. When using dc. signal conditioning system, with a carrier of 3 kHz, the data frequency should be limited to : (a) 1kHz (&) 5Hz (0) 600 Hz (d) 2 MHz. The input and output displacements are of opposite phase in (@) simple lever (®) compound lever (©) compound gear trains (@) none of these. What is the desirable feature in an electronic amplifier? (@) High output impedance () Low input impedance (©) good frequency response (@) All of these. Charge amplifiers are used in order to amplify the output signals of (@) inductive (®) capacitive (0) resistive (d) piezo-electric and capacitive transducers.242 ‘A Textbook of Mechatronics 10. Filters that transmit all frequencies below a defined cut-off frequency are known as (@) low-pass filters (0) high-pass filters (©) band-pass filters (@) any of these. 11. Excitation and amplification systems are needed (@) for active transducers only (b) for passive transducers only (©) for both active and passive transducers (@) for both passive and output transducers. 12, Ade. amplifier (@) needs to have a balanced differential inputs with a high common mode rejection ratio (CMRR) to give very good thermal and long term stability. () easy to calibrate at low frequencies and has ability to recover from overload conditions. (0) is immune to drift and low frequency spurious signals come out as data information. (@) is followed by a low pass filter to eliminate high frequency components including noise from the data signal. (© allof the above. 13. The output from frequency-modulation system is (@) ac. voltage () dec. voltage (0) ac.and dc. voltage (@) any of these. 14. The data transmission with synchro systems employs telemetering to convey the requisite information. (@) frequency (®) position (0) impulses @ voltage. 15. When using ac. signal conditioning system for capacitive transducers, the carrier frequencies (@) range between 50 Hz and 20 kHz (b) should be of the order of 0.5 MHz (0) should be of the order to 20 MHz (@) none of the above. 16. An ac. signal conditioning system is normally used for (@) resistive transducers like strain gauges _(b) inductive and capacitive transducers (©) piezoelectric transducers (@) all of the above. 17. The overall gain or amplification of a system of two amplifiers arranged in series is @ G,+6, ® G,-6, 0 GxG @ a where G, and G, are the two gains expressed as pure numbers. 18. The properties of an ideal Op-amp are : (@) It should have zero input impedance __(b) It should have high input impedance (0) Itshoulld have a zero open loop gain _(d) None of the above. 19. The moving iron voltmeters indicate : (a) the same value of dc. and a.c. voltages. (6) lower values for a.c. voltages than the corresponding values of d.c. voltages. (©) higher value for a.c. voltages than the corresponding values of d.c. voltages. (d) none of the above. 20. Whic!. of the following is the visual display unit? (@) Cathode any oscilloscope (®) UN. recorder (©) Storage oscilloscope (@) Moving coil oscillograph. 21. Which of the following units has a high frequency response but presents difficulty in getting a permanent record?‘Signal Conditioning; Data Acquisition, Transmission and Presentation/Display 243 _ (@) Seryo recorder (b) Moving coil oscillograph (©) XY recorder (@) Cathode ray oscilloscope. . The switching time of LEDs is of the order of @ 1s () Ims © Ips (@) Ins. 3. LEDs emit light @) only in red colour (6) only in yellow colour (©) only in green colour (@) in red, green yellow and amber colours, 24. 27. 31. 32. The advantages of FM. magnetic tape recording are (@) It can record from d.c. to several KHz _(b) It is free from dropout effects (©) It is independent of amplitude and accurately reproduces the waveform of input signal (d) Allof the above. The source of emission of electrons in a CRT is : (@) PN junction diode (®) a barium and strontium oxide coated cathode . (0) accelerating anodes (2) post accelerating anodes. . The pointer-scale instruments have a (@) very high (®) very low (©) linerar (@) stable frequencies response. ‘The operation of a moving-coil current recording instruments is based on (a) photo-electric principle (&) D’ Arsonval principle (©) piezo-electric principle (@) thermo-electtic principle. The turn on and turn off times of a LCD are of the order of (a) 1s (b) ms (9 10ms @) 10 ns. The power requirement of an LED is (@) 40 mW per numeral (®) 40 WW per numeral (©) 10W per numeral (d) 10 pW per numeral. A Nixie tube requires (@) 10 cathodes (6) 12 cathodes (©) 15 cathodes (@) 20 cathodes. The time bases of an oscilloscope are generated by (@) horizontal amplifier (®) vertical amplifier (©) sweep generators (@) storage oscilloscope. Which of the following devices requires a matching network to avoid overloading of the signal source and prevent damage from excessive current? (@) U.V. recorder () XY recorder (0) Storage oscilloscope (@) Servo recorder. . XY recorders record a quantity (a) with respect to another quantity (®) on X axis with respect to time on Y axis, (©) on Y axis with respect to time on X axis (d)_any of these. In an electrodynamometer type of wattmeter (@) the current coil is made fixed (®) the pressure coil is made fixed (©) any of the two coils can be made fixed (d) both the coils should be movable. An average reading VTVM uses one diode with an external series resistance. A high value of series resistance is used so that the instrument should have‘A Textbook of Mechatronics (@) ahigh input impedance (b) alinear v-i characteristics () low power consumption (@) all of the above. 36. In a CRT the focusing anode is located (a) between pre-accelerating and accelerating anode (b) after accelerating anode (©) before pre-accelerating anode (d)_none of the above. 37. Post acceleration is needed in a CRO if the frequency of the signals is (@) less than 1 MHz (b) more than 1 MHz (©) more than 10 MHz (@ more than 10 Hz. 38. The slewing speed in an x-y recorder refers to @) time base (®) maximum constant velocity that the marking pen achieves (©) frequency response (@ relationship between inputs to x and y channels. 39. Which of the following recorder/display units has the highest frequency response and least response time? (@) XY plotters (®) UN. recorders (©) Pen recorders (@) CRO. 40. An LCD requires a power of approximately () 20W (6) 20mw (© 20nw (@) 20nw. A. Choose the correct answer L@ 26 30 4 @ 5. @ 6 © 7 @ & © 2@ W@ 1@ RO BH HH 15. (b) 16. (b) 17. () 18. (b) 19. (b) 20. (a) 21. @d) 22. (d) 23. (d) 24. (d) 25. (b) 26. (b) 27. (b) 28. (c) 29. (a) 30. () 31. (©) 32. (a) 33. (a) 34. (a) 35. (d) 36. @) = 37. © 38 8. 40. ). B. Fill in the Blanks or say “Yes” or “No” 1. The first stage of the instrumentation or measurement system which detects the measurand is termed as stage. 2. Amplification means enhancement of the signal level which is given in the low level range. 3. Modulation means to change the form of signal. 4 transmission means to transmit signal from one location to another without changing the contents of the information. 5. D.C. amplifier is difficult to calibrate at low frequencies. 6. The major disadvantage of a D.C. amplifier is that it suffers from the problem of drift. 7. is a device which is used to increase or augment the weak signal. 8. The ratio of output signal to input signal for an amplifier is termed as gain or amplification. 9. A “Compound gear train” gives small modification. 10. The D.C. amplifiers are capable of amplifying static, slowly changing or rapid-repetitive input signals.Signal Conditioning; Data Acquisition, Transmission and Presentation/Display 245 nL 12. 1B. 14, 15. 16. 17. 18. |. The last stage of a measurement system is the ... . Almost all electronic voltmeters make use of the rectifying properties of ‘When “modulation” is used in instrumentation, frequency modulation is the more common form. More commonly, the mixed signal and carrier are demodulated by rectification and filtering. An. is a linear integrated circuit that has a very high voltage gain, a high input impedance and a low voltage output impedance. An-amps are linear integrated circuits that work on relatively ... supply voltage. .. amplifier converts a voltage at high impedance to the same voltage at low impedance. is a two-port resistive network and is used to reduce the signal level by a given amount. Variable attenuators are used as control volumes in radio broadcasting stations. is an electronic circuit which can pass or stop a particular band of frequencies it. ugh A low pass filter is also called lag network. Current telemetering is quite suitable for long distances. . presentation stage. A good display, functionally, is one which permits the best combination of when transferring the necessary information from the instrument to the operator. type meters indicate the reading in exact numerals. The number. The analog meters work on the principle of quantization. instruments indicate the value of the measurand in the form of decimal . An analog instrument can be considered as a counter which counts the pulses in a predetermined time. 28. A P-N junction diode, which emits light when forward biased is known as a light emitting 88 31. g g 388 FREER diode (LED). Liquid crystal displays (LED) have extremely low power requirement. A indicator tube consists of a gas filled glass tube having ten cathodes in the form of numbers and an anode. Digclampter gives reading in .» form. A records electrical and non-electrical quantities as a function of time. type strip chart recorder operates on “comparison basis”. Instruments that record changes of only one measured variable are called .. recorders, A sumone FeCOrder may have as many as 24 inputs, with traces displaced in 6 colours. ‘A XY recorder is an instrument, which gives a gra’ ~ record of relationship between two variables. 7. Magnetic tape recorders have response characteristics which enable them to be used at frequencies. A.CRO is an instrument which presents signal wave-forms visually. A CRO cannot be used to compare two signals in phase, frequency or amplitude. A CRO can be used for tracing transistor curves. Fill in the Blanks or say “Yes” or “No” detector-transducer 2. Yes 3. Yes 4, Data No. 6. Yes 7. Amplifier 8. Yes246 ‘A Textbook of Mechatronics 9. No 10. Yes 11. No 12. Yes 13. Op-amp 14. low 15. Buffer 16. Attenuator 17. Yes 18. Filter 19. Yes 20. No 21. data 22. speed, accuracy, sensitivity 23. Digital 24. diodes 25. digital 26. No 27. No 28. Yes 29. Yes 30. Numerical 31. digital 32. recorder 33. Null 34. single point 35. multipoint 36. Yes 37. higher 38. Yes 39. No 40. Yes. THEORETICAL QUESTIONS 1. What do you mean by the following terms as app! system? (i) Detector-transducer stage. (i Signal conditioning stage. 2. State the limitations of mechanical amplification. What are the advantages of electrical signal conditioning? 4. Explain briefly the following functions of signal conditioning equipment: () Amplification (ii) Modification or modulation (iit) Impedance matching (iv) Data processing () Data transmission. 5. Explain briefly the following: () DC. signal conditioning system. (ii) A.C. signal conditioning systems. 6. Describe briefly the term “Amplification”. 7. Explain briefly any two of the following amplifiers: (® Mechanical amplifiers (ii) Fluid amplifiers (ii) Electrical and electronic amplifiers 8. State the generalities that can be listed for an ideal electronic amplifier. 9. What are A.C. and D.C. amplifiers? Explain briefly. 10. What do you mean by “Modulated and unmodulated signals”? 11. What is an Op-amp? State its limitations as well. 12. Explain briefly the term “Common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR). 13. State the applications of Op-amp. 14. Enumerate some of the commonly used Op-amp circuits. 15. Explain briefly the following: ( Buffer amplifier. (i) Differential amplifier. 16. State the advantages of differential amplifiers. 17. What is an attenuator? How are the attenuators classified? 18. What do you mean by the terms “Filtefing” and “Filter”? 19. How are filters classified? 20. What do you mean by "Signal transmission”? 21. Explain briefly any three of the following types of transmission ? (Mechanical transmission (i) Hydraulic transmission (ii) Pneumatic transmission (iv) Magnetic transmission. to instrumentation or measurement °Signal Conditioning; Data Acquisition, Transmission and Presentation/Display 247 22. Give five examples of electric type of transmitters. 23. What do you mean by “Converters”? 24. How are telemetering systems classified? 25. Explain briefly any two of the following types of telemetering systems: ( Voltage telemetering (i) Current telemetering (i) Impulse telemetering (i) Frequency telemetering. 26. What is the main purpose of any measurement system? 27. What is the function of the display or recording element of a generalised measurement system? 28. How does a display unit differ from a recorder? 29. How are the output devices categorized? Explain briefly. 30. How can we get machine interpretable outputs? 31. List the different forms in which the display is available from an instrument. 32. How are electrical indicating instruments classified? 33. How analog display meters differ from digital type meters? 34. Give a comparison between analog type and digital type instruments. 35. Give four examples each of the analog type and digital type instrumentation. 36. Explain briefly the following: (@ Single-point indicators. (i) Multi-point multi-pointer and multi-range indicators. 37. Explain briefly the essential features of indicating instruments. 38. Describe briefly any two of the following : ( Moving-iron instruments; (ii) Moving-coil instruments; (ii) Rectifier instruments. 39. What are advantages of electronic voltmeters? 40. What are digital instruments? State their principle of operation. 41. Explain briefly any two of the following: ( Semiconductor light emitting diodes (LED); (ii) Liquid crystal displays; (iii) Hot filament or bar tubes; (iv) Numerical indicator tubes (NIT). . What is a recorder? . Elaborate the difference between a display unit and a recorder. . What is meant by a direct reading instrument? 45. Explain the functioning of a basic type of strip chart recorder. Enumerate the different types of marking mechanisms used in it. 46. Distinguish between single point and multi-point recorders. 47. What is a X-Y recorder? State its applications. 48. Explain the moving of an ultraviolet (U.V) recorder. State its applications. 49, What are the basic components of a magnetic tape recorder for instrumentation applications? List its advantages and disadvantages. * 50. Explain with neat diagram the construction and working of a cathode ray oscilloscope (CRO). 51. Describe the different parts of a cathode ray tube (CRT). 52. What are the applications of a CRO? Bas