DATA ACQUISITION

for Instrumentation and control

Introduction

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 Definition
Data acquisition is the process by which
physical phenomena from the real world
are transformed into electrical signals that
are measured and converted into a digital
format for processing, analysis, and
storage by a computer.
data acquisition (DAQ) system is designed not
only to acquire data, but to act on it as well.

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 DAQ and Control
Control
is the process by which digital control signals
from the system hardware are convened to a
signal format for use by control devices such as
actuators and relays. These devices then
control a system or process.
Where a system is referred to as a data
acquisition system or DAQ system, it is possible
that it includes control functions as well.
Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI
 Elements of
a data acquisition system
Sensors and transducers
 Field wiring
 Signal conditioning
 Data acquisition hardware
 PC (operating system)
 Data acquisition software

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 Basic elements

Sensors and transducers

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI
Data Acquisition and Processing

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 Sensors and Transducers
• Transducers and sensors provide the
actual interface between the real world
and the data acquisition system by
converting physical phenomena into
electrical signals that the
• signal conditioning and/or data
acquisition hardware can accept.

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

Give the names of Transducers

• ?
Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI
wiring and communications
cabling
Field wiring represents the physical connection
from the transducers and sensors to the
signal conditioning hardware and/or data
acquisition hardware.
When the signal conditioning and/or data
acquisition hardware is remotely located from
the PC, then the field wiring provides the
physical link between these hardware elements
and the host computer.
Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI
 Signal conditioning
• Filtering
• Amplification
• Linearization
• Isolation
• Excitation

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

• Filtering
• In noisy environments, it is very difficult
for very small signals received from sensors
• such as thermocouples and strain gauges (in
the order of mV), to survive without the
• sensor data being compromised.

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

• Amplification
• Having filtered the required input signal, it must
be amplified to increase the resolution.
• The maximum resolution is obtained by
amplifying the input signal so that the maximum
• voltage swing of the input signal equals the input
range of the analog-to-digital converter
• (ADC), contained within the data acquisition
hardware.

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

• Linearization
• Many transducers, such as thermocouples,
display a non-linear relationship to the
• physical quantity they are required to
measure. The method of linearizing these
input
• signals varies between signal conditioning
products.
Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI
• Isolation
• Signal conditioning equipment can also be used to
provide isolation of transducer signals
• from the computer where there is a possibility that
high voltage transients may occur
• within the system being monitored, either due to
electrostatic discharge or electrical
• failure. Isolation protects expensive computer
equipment

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

• Excitation
• Signal conditioning products also provide
excitation for some transducers. For
example:
• strain gauges, thermistors and RTDs,
require external voltage or current
excitation signals.

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 Functions of Acquisition
hardware
1- The input, processing and conversion to
digital format, using ADCs, of analog
signal data measured from a system or
process – the data is then transferred to
a computer for display, storage and
analysis
2- The input of digital signals,
3- The processing, conversion to analog format,
using DACs,
4- output of digital control signals
Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI
 Hardware /Links with Computer
• Ports for data acquisition
RS232
IEEE-488 (GPIB (General Purpose
Interface Bus)
Printer port
Sound Card ports
Specially designed BUS Cards
DAQ cards

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 Software
application software can be a full screen
interactive panel, a dedicated input/output
control program, a data logger, a
communications handler, or a combination of
all of these.

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 Options for software
• Program the registers of the data acquisition
hardware directly
• Utilize low-level driver software, usually provided
with the hardware, to develop a software
application for the specific tasks required
• Utilize off-the-shelf application software
(third party packages such as LabVIEW and Labtech
Notebook provide a graphical interface for
programming)

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 PC

• Depending on the particular application, the

microprocessor speed, hard disk access
• time, disk capacity and the types of data
transfer available, can all have an impact on
the
• speed at which the computer is able to
continuously acquire data.

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 Classification of Signals

The Output signal has a relationship with the

physical phenomenon.For Example, value of
e.m.f obtained from a thermocouple, has
relationship with the temperature

Voltage or current output signal from

transducers has some direct relationship with
the physical phenomena they are designed to
measure.
Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI
 Digital signals/ binary signals
A digital, or binary,
signal can have only
two possible
specified levels or
states; an ‘on’ state,
in which the signal is
at its highest level,
and an ‘off’ state, in
which the signal is Exaples:- the output voltage
at its lowest level. signal of a transistor-to-
transistor logic (TTL),
Control devices, such as
relays, and indicators such
Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI
as LEDs,
 Digital pulse trains
• a sequence of digital pulses
• a digital pulse can have only two defined levels
or states.
• For Example:- Output of level indicator,
Control of speed and position of a stepper motor

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 Analog signals
 Analog signals contain information within the
variation in the magnitude of the signal with
respect to time.
 information contained in the signal is
dependent on whether the magnitude of the
analog signal is varying slowly or quickly with
respect to time.
 For Example:-Temperature and Pressure
measurement, control hardware like a valve
actuator,
Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI
Analog DC signals

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 Analog Signals Conversion
• DAQ hardware would only be
required to convert the signal level
to a digital form for processing by
the computer using an analog-to-
digital converter (ADC). Low speed
A/D boards would be capable of
measuring this class of signal.

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

Analog Signal

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 Sensors and transducers
• A transducer is a device that converts one form
of energy or physical quantity into another, in
accordance with some defined relationship.
• In data acquisition systems, transducers sense
physical phenomena and provide electrical
signals that the system can accept. For
example, thermocouples, resistive temperature
detectors (RTDs), thermistors, and IC sensors
convert temperature into an analog voltage
signal, while flow transducers produce digital
pulse trains whose frequency depends on the
speed of flow.
Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI
 Categories of Transducers
• Active transducers convert non-electrical
energy into an electrical output signal. They do
not require external excitation to operate.
Thermocouples are an example of an active
transducer.
• Passive transducers change an electrical
network value, such as resistance, inductance
or capacitance, according to changes in the
physical quantity being measured. Strain
gauges (resistive change to stress) and LVDTs
(inductance change to displacement) are two
examples of this.
Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI
 Transducer characteristics
• Accuracy (how close a measurement is to the
actual value)
• Sensitivity (change in the output signal from
a transducer to a specified change in the input
variable)
• Repeatability (close the repeated
measurements)
• Range (and maximum measurable values of a
process variable)

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Thermocouples

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 Signal Conditioning
• Filtering of signals
• Cut-off frequency >This is the transition
frequency at which the filter takes effect. It may
be the high-pass cut-off or the low-pass cut-off
frequency and is usually defined as the frequency
at which the normalized gain drops 3 dB below
unity.
• Roll-off >This is the slope of the amplitude versus
the frequency graph at the region of the cut-off
frequency. This characteristic distinguishes an
ideal filter from a practical (non-ideal) filter. The
roll-off is usually measured on a logarithmic scale
in units of decibels (dB).
Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI
 Low pass filters
• Low pass filters pass low frequency
components of the signal and filter out high
frequency components above a specific
high frequency.

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Signals Data after Filtering

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Signal circuit isolation

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How Computer Takes INPUT signals
• Interrupts are the mechanism by which
the CPU of a computer can attend to
important events such as keystrokes or
characters arriving at the COM port only
when they occur. This allows the CPU
to execute a program and only service
such I/O devices as needed

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 Interrupts
• Hardware interrupts
These are generated electrically by I/O devices
that require attention from the CPU.
• Software interrupts
There are 256 possible interrupt types that can
be generated by software.
• Processor exceptions
Exceptions are generated when an illegal
operation is performed in software (for
example divide by zero).
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Programmable interrupt
controller(s)

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 Direct Memory Access (DMA)
• Microprocessor controls data transfers within
the PC (using the IN(port) and OUT(port)
instructions.
• In many I/O interfacing applications and
certainly in data acquisition systems, it is
often necessary to transfer data to or from an
interface at data rates higher than those
possible using simple programmed I/O loops.

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 DMA contd.
• Transferring screen information to the
‘video card adapter’ on board memory
• Transferring data from a remote I/O
device (data acquisition board) to the
PC’s memory
• Direct memory access (DMA) facilitates
the maximum data transfer rate and
microprocessor concurrence.

Dr. ABDULLAH KHAN DURRANI

 Computer Operations
• Memory-read: data transfer from a memory
device to the CPU
• Memory-write: data transfer from the CPU to a
memory device
• I/O-read: data transfer from an I/O device to
the CPU
• I/O-write: data transfer from the CPU to an I/O
device
• DMA Write I/O: data transfer from a memory
device to an I/O device
• DMA Read I/O: data transfer from an I/O
device to a memory device
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 Communication I/O devices

• Serial Port
• Parallel Port
• PCI Bus
• EISA Bus

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Computer Interfacing

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Plug in Data Acquisition board

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