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Instrumentation and Measurement

5th Semester, 3rd Year (F-16EL)

B.E Electrical Engg. Program

Dr. Nayyar Hussain

Assistant Professor

Lecture # 16
Department of Electrical Engineering
Mehran University of Engg. & Technology,
Jamshoro

Digital Meters

 Digital meters give readings in the form of digits i.e. a

number, rather than in terms of the position of the some
pointer along a scale.
 The advantage of this are reduction in the human reading
errors (no parallax error).
 Since most of the quantities to be measured are analogue
in nature, they need to be converted to a digital signal
before they can be displayed by the instrument.
 Thus, an ADC is usually an integral part of a Digital
Instrument.
 Let us also try to understand Analgue and Digital Signals
explicitly

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Analog Signals

Analog signals – directly measurable quantities in

terms of some other quantity

Examples:
 Thermometer – mercury height rises as temperature
rises
 Car Speedometer – Needle moves farther right as
you accelerate
 Stereo – Volume increases as you turn the knob.

Digital Signals

 Have only two states.

 For digital computers, we refer to binary states,
0 and 1.
 “1” can be on, “0” can be off.

Examples:
 Light switch can be either on or off

 Door to a room is either open or closed

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Hybrid System
(Both Analog and Digital)

Encoder Decoder
Digital
Analog Analog
Processing
input A/D D/A output
Unit
Converter Converter

Converts from analog input Converts from digital input

to digital output to analog output

Example-Digital Volt Meter

 The Digital voltmeter can be considered to be basically just an ADC

connected to a counter and a display unit as shown in fig below:

 The voltage to be measured, an analogue quantity, is sampled at

some instant of time and converted by ADC to a digital signal, i.e. a
series of pulses with the number of the pulses being related to the
size of the analogue voltage.
 These pulses are counted by a counter and displayed as a series of
digits.

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Analogue to Digital Conversion

 ADC convert an analogue signal with size/amplitude

which can vary continuously into a digit form which has
discrete number of levels
 It is like taking a continuous varying height and
converting it into a position up a ladder or staircase
 Most digital data formats used with electronic
instrumentation are based on signal levels that are
restricted to two states i.e. binary values represented
by 0 and 1
 Binary digits 0 and 1 are referred to as bits, a group
of bits being referred to as word

Analogue to Digital Conversion

 The position of bits in words has significance that

least significant bit is on right end of word and most
significant bit is on left end
 The number of levels into which an analogue signal
can be subdivided and so specified is determined
by number of bits in word
 If we have N bits than levels are 2N
 A bit word has 24 levels ie 16 levels

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Analogue to Digital Conversion

Analogue to Digital Conversion

 Figure illustrates such a conversion from an analogue signal

0 to 1.5v into a 4 bit word
 With no input all the bits in the word are 0.when input
voltage rises to 0.1V then the first bit in the word becomes
1, when input rises to 0.2V then first bit changes to 0 and
second bit becomes 1.each rise in input of 0.1V results in a
bit being added to word
 With the 4 bit conversion the smallest change in input that
will produce change in binary output is 0.1V. This is what is
known as resolution of converter.
 For a given range of input signal the bigger the word
length of converter better its resolution

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Analogue to Digital Conversion

 The term conversion time is used to specify the time it takes a

converter to generate a complete digital word when supplied
with analogue input.
 Typically conversion times are of the order of microseconds
 With the example given an analogue voltage of 1V gives a
digital output of 1010.there is then no change in output until
the analogue voltage has risen to 1.1V when output becomes
1011. thus an output of 101 can only mean that voltage is
between 1.0 and 1.1V
 The term quantization error is used for this uncertainty in the
conversion, being error due to conversion of 1 bit.

A/D Converter Types

1. Successive Approximation ADC

2. Ramp ADC
3. Dual ramp ADC
4. Voltage to Frequency ADC

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A/D Converter Types

 The successive approximations, flash and ramp

forms are examples of what can be termed as
sampling ADCs in that they provide digital values
equivalent to voltage at the instant of time at which
signal is sampled.
 The dual ramp and voltage to frequency forms are
examples of integrating ADCs in that the average
value of voltage is indicated over a fixed
measurement time.
 Integrating instruments take longer to carry out
measurement but have better noise rejection

The successive approximations

 With successive approximations form a sample of analogue input

voltage is taken and then compared with a voltage which is increased
in increments until its total value reaches the input voltage as shown in
fig
 This incrementally increasing voltage is produced by a clock emitting a
regular sequence of pulses which are counted and converted into
analogue signal by digital to analogue converter
 The resulting analogue signal is compared with the input voltage and
when it rises to level above it, the pulses from the clock are stopped
from reaching the counter and thus counter reading is the digital
equivalent of the analogue input voltage
 The successive approximations form of digital voltmeter is one of
fastest responding voltmeter

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The successive approximations

 The method outlined above is rather like weighing an object on a laboratory

balance by building upto the balance weight by putting in the balance pans an
increasing number of smallest size weights
 A faster weighing method is to start with a large weight, check for balance and if
too large, to try half the weight . this is continued with the weights being halved
each time until one is found which is too light
 The weight is then retained and then the process of adding half size weights
continued until the smallest weight is reached
 A similar procedure can be used with the ADC.
 For fast responses, instead of comparing the input voltage with steadily mounting
voltage incrments and building upto the required voltage , the comparison is
made first with the analogue of most significant bit ,then second most significant
bit, in much the same way as faster weighing method.
 The sequence might thus be try 1000, if too large try 0100, if too small try
0110,if too small try 0111,if too large then the result is 0110

The Successive Approximations

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Ramp form of ADC

 The ramp form of ADC gives the simplest and cheapest form
of digital voltmeter.
 The input analogue voltage is applied to the comparator
and the time taken for a ramp voltage to climb from 0V to
analogue voltage measured.
 The time is obtained in digital form by counting the number
of pulses produced by clock during the time the gate is
open, the gate being open when the ramp starts and close
when the ramp and analogue voltages are equal.
 Because of non linearities in shape of ramp and its lack of
noise rejection, accuracy is typically limited to about plus
minus 0.05%.

Ramp ADC

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Dual ramp
 The dual ramp has the input analogue voltage integrated over time t1 equal
to 1 cycle of line frequency.
 For a constant analogue input voltage, a steadily increasing voltage is
produced across the capacitor of integrator.
 At the end of time a switch operates and disconnects the analogue voltage
from integrator leaving capacitor with a charge
 Since i=dq/dt=q/t1 for a constant rate of charging, the charge Qin on
capacitor is it1=Vint1/R. Then a constant negative analogue reference
voltage Vref is switched to integrator input.
 The time t2 is then measured for integrator output to reach zero ie for
Vreft2/R to equal Vint1/R as shown in figure. The time t2 is measure of Vin
 this form of ADC has advantage of noise and line-frequency signal
rejection but since it integrates the signal over 1 cycle of the mains
frequency it has conversion time of only the reciprocal of the mains
frequency.

DUAL RAMP ADC

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Voltage to frequency form of ADC

 With voltage to frequency form of ADC the analogue input voltage is

converted into a set of pulses whose frequency is proportional to size
of input voltage.
 The frequency is then determined by counting the number of pulses
occurring in some fixed time interval
 Figure shows block diagram of this form of ADC and fig shows the
form that can be taken by voltage to frequency element.
 An integrator is used to integrate the analogue input Vin over the time
it takes for integrator output to go from 0 to –Vref.
 This time is RCVref/Vin. At the end of this time, a pulse generator emits
a single pulse.
 Since input to integrator is still present, the process repeats itself and
result is sequence of pulses with frequency determined by Vin.

Voltage to Frequency ADC

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Circuit configuration

Advantages Associated with Digital Meters

 Reading out of measurement is easy as it eliminates

observational errors in measurement committed by
operators.
 Error on account of parallax and approximation is entirely
eliminated.
 Reading can be taken very fast.
 Output can be fed to memory devices for storage and future
computations.
 Versatile and generally accurate
 Compact and cheap
 Low power requirements
 Portability increased

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