S&M, Unit V
S&M, Unit V
• Signal conditioning is stage of instrumentation system used for modifying the transduced signal into a usable format
for the final stage.
Need of signal conditioner:
• To make the output of a system suitable to drive the output
device connected at the output of system, signal conditioning is
required.
• Signal conditioner is required to perform following operations.
1. Amplification
2. Attenuation
3. Isolation
4. Filtering
5. Excitation
6. Linearization
Signal conditioning
techniques:
1. D.C. Signal conditioning
technique.
2. A.C. Signal conditioning
technique.
D.C. Signal conditioning:
• The D.C. system makes use of passive transducer which requires external
power supply(D.C.) for their excitation.
• Hence the signal conditioning required for such a D.C. system consisting
of resistive transducer is called as D.C. signal conditioning.
D.C. signal conditioning is used for resistance transducer such as
potentiometer, strain gauge.
• For D.C. signal conditioning D.C. voltage source is used for excitation.
• The dc amplifier is used to amplify small signal at sufficient level.
• The dc amplifier is followed by low pass filter, which is used to eliminate the
high frequency components or noise from the data signals.
• The main drawback of this system is the drift problem. This is overcome by
A.C. Signal conditioning system.
DISADVANTAGES:
1. System suffers from drift problem.
2. It require dc amplifier with high CMRR.
3. It is not easy to calibrate D.C. amplifier at low frequency.
4. D.C. amplifier requires high thermal and long term stability
Ac signal conditioning:
• It is used for variable reactance transducers, for systems where signal
have to be transmitted via long cables to connect the transducers to
signal conditioning equipment is called as A.C. signal conditioning.
• In order to overcome the problem of drift in the dc system, ac systems are used.
• The transducers used are of the variable reactance type. They are employed between carrier frequencies of
• The carrier frequencies are much higher, at least 5 to 10 times the signal frequencies.
• The output of transducer is applied to the bridge circuit, whose output is an amplitude modulated carrier
signal. This waveform is amplified by an ac amplifier. This amplified modulated output is the applied to
phase sensitive demodulator, the carrier signal. This produces the dc output that indicates the direction
• In carrier system amplifier, frequency drift and presence of spurious signals ate not much of a problem.
Active filter can be used to reject this frequency and prevent overloading of the ac amplifier.
• The function of phase sensitive detector is to filter out the carrier frequency components of the data
signal.
• ADVANTAGES:
1. No frequency drift problem.
2. No spurious signal is present.
• DISADVANTAGES:
1. It is difficult to obtain a stable carrier oscillator frequency.
2. It requires a A.C. amplifier of proper bandwidth to amplify the
particular signal
Data acquisition system:
• Data acquisition system (DAS) is a process of collecting the input data in digital
form as rapidly, accurately, completely and economically as necessary.
• The data acquisition system (DAS) typically converts analog data into digital
data for the purpose of processing, transmission display and storage.
• The various configuration used in DAS are
1. Single channel DAS
2. Multichannel DAS
APPLICATIONS:
3. DAS can be used for converting physical quantities into data.
4. DAS can be used for factory automation.
5. DAS can be used in weather observations.
6. In the supervisory and display systems.
Single channel data acquisition system