EL 302-Instruments & Measurements

Lecture 03

Instrument’s Dynamic Characteristics

Dynamic Characteristics of an Instrument
• When the instrument is subjected to rapidly varying input, the output
also varies instant to instant.
• The behavior of the system under such conditions is called the
dynamic response of the system.
• The dynamic characteristics of a measuring instrument describe its
behavior between the time a measured quantity changes value and
the time when the instrument output attains a steady value in
response.
• As with static characteristics, any values for dynamic characteristics
quoted in instrument data sheets only apply when the instrument is
used under specified environmental conditions.
• Outside these calibration conditions, some variation in the dynamic
parameters can be expected.

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 Dynamic Characteristics
• Speed of Response: How fast the system responds to changes in
the quantity to be measured.
• Fidelity: How faithfully the system reproduces the changes in the
input. It is the ability of an instrument to produce a wave shape
identical to wave shape of input with respect to time.
• Lag: The time taken by an instrument to respond.
• Dynamic Error (Accuracy): Assuming zero static error the
difference in the true and measured values of a system’s variable.

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Dynamic Inputs

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 Order of Instrument
• The dynamic response of the system is checked after
applying certain basic known and pre-determined
variations of the input to the sensing element and such a
response is expressed mathematically by differential
equations.
• Following are the order of instrument w.r.t responses:
– Zero Order
– First Order
– Second Order

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 Zero order instrument
• Any instrument that behaves according to following equation, is said
to be of zero order type.
q0 = Kqi
where K is a constant known as the instrument sensitivity.
• Following a step change (for better understanding we limit
consideration to that of step changes in the measured quantity only,
which can be apply to nearly all measurement systems) in the
measured quantity at time t, the instrument output moves
immediately to a new value at the same time instant t, as shown in
Figure (i).

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 Zero order instrument
• A potentiometer, which measures motion, is a good example of zero
order instrument, where the output voltage changes instantaneously
as the slider is displaced along the potentiometer track.

Figure (i)
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 First order instrument
• The rate at which the measured quantity change with time can be
modeled with the first order derivative and the behavior of the
instrument is modeled as a first order differential equation.
• Any instrument that behaves according to following equation, is said
to be of first order type.

• Where: K is the static sensitivity and is the time constant of the

system.
• If equation above is solved analytically, the output quantity q0 in
response to a step change in qi at time t varies with time in the
manner shown in Figure (ii), The time constant of the step response
is the time taken for the output quantity q0 to reach 63% of its final
value.
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 Figure (ii)
• The liquid-in-glass thermometer is a good example of a first
order instrument, if a thermometer at room temperature is
plunged into boiling water, the output e.m.f. does not rise
instantaneously to a level indicating100°C, but instead
approaches a reading indicating 100°C in a manner similar to
that shown in Figure (ii).
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 Second order instrument
• The standard equation for a second order system:

• Where:
– K is the static sensitivity,
– ω is the undamped natural frequency and
– is the damping ratio
• If equation above is solved analytically, the shape of the step
response obtained depends on the value of the damping ratio
parameter .
• The output responses of a second order instrument for various
values of following a step change in the value of the measured
quantity at time t are shown in Figure (iii):

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 Figure (iii)
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• For case (A) where = 0,there is no damping and the instrument
output exhibits constant amplitude oscillations when disturbed by
any change in the physical quantity measured.
• For light damping of = 0.2, represented by case(B), the
response to a step change in input is still oscillatory but the
oscillations gradually die down.
• Further increase in the value of reduces oscillations and
overshoots till more, as shown by curves(C) and (D), and finally
the response becomes very over damped as shown by curve(E)
where the output reading creeps up slowly towards the correct
reading.
• Clearly, the extreme response curves(A) and (E) are grossly
unsuitable for any measuring instrument.
• If an instrument were to be only ever subjected to step inputs,
then the design strategy would be to aim towards a damping
ratio of 0.707, which gives the critically damped response(C).

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 Errors & it’s Types
• The algebraic difference between the indicated
value and the true value of the quantity to be
measured is called an error or Absolute Error.

Here ‘e’ is the Absolute Error.

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 Errors & it’s Types
• If the Absolute Error is relate (divide) with
the True Vale is called Relative Error
• But as Accuracy mention in term of full
scale deflection so if the absolute error is
divided by the full scale value its give the
accuracy

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Errors & it’s Types

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Measurement Errors Classification
• Errors arising during the measurement
process can be divided into three groups,
known as:
– Gross errors

– Systematic Errors

– Random Errors
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Measurement Errors Classification
• Gross errors:
– Caused by experimenter carelessness.

• Systematic Errors:
– Describe errors in the output readings of a measurement system
that are consistently on one side of the correct reading, i.e. either
all the errors are positive or they are all negative.
– These errors relate with the accuracy of the instrument.
– Two major sources of systematic errors are system disturbance
during measurement and the effect of environmental changes.

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Measurement Errors Classification

• Random Errors:
– Perturbations of the measurement either side of the
true value caused by random and unpredictable
effects, such that positive errors and negative errors
occur in approximately equal numbers for a series of
measurements made of the same quantity.
– These errors relate with the Precision of the
instrument.

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 Calibration
• Calibration is the process of making an adjustment or marking a
scale so that the readings of an instrument agree with the accepted
and the certified standard.
• Or it is the procedure for determining the correct values of
measurand by comparison with the standard ones.
• Calibration involves:
– Inspection for various defects
– Installation a/c to specifications
– Zero adjustment etc.
• If the device has been repaired, aged, adjusted or
modified, then recalibration is carried out.

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 Calibration Methodologies
• Two fundamentals methodologies for obtaining the
calibration (comparison between test instrument and
standard instrument)
– Direct comparison: Test instrument output directly
compare with the standard source input or vise-versa.
If the transducer is under calibration then both source
and meter should be the standard ones.
– Indirect comparison: Output of a test instrument
compares with the output of standard instrument by
applying the same input or vise-versa.

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Direct Comparison Indirect Comparison

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 Assignment
1. Write any four causes of error in
measurements.
2. What are the types of systematic errors?
3. Give an example of an instruments (or
system) and highlight the Desired Input,
Interfering Input and Modifying Input.
4. In what ways experimental measurement
readings are taken from large data.
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