Introduction to Electrical

measurement and Instrumentation

ECEG-4153

CHAPTER ONE
General principle of
Instrumentation
Measurement & Instrumentation
 Measurement: It is the process of gathering
information from the physical world

 Instrumentation: It is the collection of

instruments or functions or their applications
for the purpose of measuring, monitoring and
controlling
- it is science that deals about measurement
and control
 System of Units and Standards
System of units
 Fundamental(basic) SI units
 Derived SI units
System of Units
Standards of Measurement
Standards: A standard of a measurement is
a physical representation of a unit of
measurement.
 Standards of measurement
 Standards of measurements can be classified
according to their function and type of
application as:
1.International standards
2.Primary standard
3.Secondary standard
4.Working standard
 International standards
 These standards are defined and maintained by
the international agreement at the international
bureau
For example, the International Prototype
kilogram, wavelength of Kr86 orange-red lamp
and cesium clock are the international standards
for mass, length and time, respectively.
However, these standards are not available to an
ordinary user for purposes of day-to-day
comparisons and calibrations.
 Primary standards
 Primary standards are maintained by the
national standards of laboratories in different
parts of the world
One of the main functions of maintaining
primary standards is to calibrate / check and
certify secondary reference standards.
These standards also are not easily available
to an ordinary user of instruments for
verification / calibration of working
standards.
 Secondary standards
Secondary standards are basic reference
standards employed by industrial
measurement laboratories.
secondary standards are checked by primary
standards of the national standards laboratory
/ organization.
Secondary standards are freely available to
the ordinary user of instruments for checking
and calibration of working standards.
 Working Standards
These are high-accuracy devices that are
commercially available and are duly checked
and certified against either the primary or
secondary standards.
For example, the most widely used industrial
working standard of length are the precision
gauge blocks made of steel. These gauge
blocks have two plane parallel surfaces a
specified distance apart, with accuracy
tolerances in the 0.25-0.5 micron range.
 Working Standards

 Similarly, a standard cell and a standard

resistor are the working standards of
voltage and resistance, respectively.
 Working standards are very widely used
for calibrating general laboratory
instruments, for carrying out comparison
measurements or for checking the quality
(range of accuracy) of industrial products.
 Functional blocks
of a measurement system
 Functional blocks of a measurement system
 Elements of Measurement
System
Input: it is a physical quantity or
phenomena which is under interest to be
measured
Examples: temperature, flow, speed, etc
Sensing element: it detects the change in
input
Example: temperature sensor, flow sensor,
speed sensor, etc
Sensing elements
 Signal conditioning element
and interfacing circuits
 signal conditioning element is used to
condition the output of sensing element in to
a convenient form, so that it can be further
processed or presented
Example: deflection bridges, Amplifiers,
Filters, Oscillator, etc
signal conversion elements: these convert
one form of signal to different form.
Examples: V/I,I/V,V/F,F/V
 Interfacing and
Signal Processing Circuits
Interfacing circuits: are used to interface
two or more electrical units having different
electrical inputs
Examples: (DAC/ADC)
Signal processing circuits: these takes the
outputs of the signal conditioning elements
and make more comfortable to the data
presenting unit
Examples: Digital signal processing,
microprocessor, etc
Data/output presenting elements
This presents the measured quantity to the
observer and the data can be presented
numerically, graphically or simply recorded
Examples:
pointers (deflection pointers)
Digital indicators using displays (LCD, LED)
cathode ray oscilloscopes(CRO)
Recording variation of signal as function of
time
Examples of measurement system
Performance Characteristics
Static Characteristics
Dynamic Characteristics
– Time response
– Frequency response
General Models
– Static models and dynamic models
– Noise and interference in instrumentation
systems
 Static characteristics
 It is the relationship between the output and the
input when the input does not change(constant) or it
is changing at a slow rate
It is the steady state response of sensors or
transducers
Static characteristics

Systematic Statistic
quantified by mathematical or graphical analyzed by statistical means
 Systematic characteristics
Examples systematic characteristics are:
Range
Span
Sensitivity
Threshold, Resolution, Hysteresis,
Linearity
input impedance or loading effect
Environmental effects
 Definitions
Range : it is the maximum or the
minimum rating of the instrument. It can be
input or output value
Span: is the interval of the output/input
range of a measuring device
it is also the maximum variation of the
input or the output of the instrument
Sensitivity: it is the rate of change in
output to the rate of change in input. It is
also known as the gain
 Definitions
Threshold: Threshold is defined as the
minimum value of the input that can be
detected by the sensing element
Resolution: The smallest change in
measured quantity that can be observed
Hysteresis : the delay phenomenon in the
output due to energy dissipation
The actual output is either smaller or greater
than the theoretical output depending on
increasing or decreasing of the input
 Definitions
Dead Space: it is defined as the range of
different input values over which there is no
change in output value(no output response).
Any instrument that exhibits hysteresis also
displays dead Space
Backlash in gears is a typical cause of dead
space
 Definitions
Linearity: it is an ideal relationship
between the input and the outputs.

Often it is described in terms of

percentage of non-linearity

Non-linearity: is a measure of the

deviation of the actual transducer response
from the ideal straight line behavior
 Definitions
Input impedance /loading effect: A
transducer used in any measurement may
normally extract some energy from the
measuring medium, there by disturbing the
value of the measured quantity. This effect is
called as loading effect.
Environmental effects: are external
influences that causes additional non ideal
characteristics to the sensor outputs
 Environmental Effects
There are two types of environment input :
 Modifying input: are undesired
parameters that affect the output of the
instrument by changing the I/O relations
Interfering input: are parameters that
unintentionally affect the instrument due to
the principles/methods used to get and
process the desired input
 Definitions
Sensitivity to disturbance: All calibrations
and specifications of an instrument are only
valid under controlled conditions of
temperature, pressure etc

Environmental changes affect instruments

in two main ways, known as zero drift and
sensitivity drift
 Definitions
Zero drift or bias describes the effect where
the zero reading of an instrument is
modified by a change in ambient conditions.
This causes a constant error that exists
over the full range of measurement of the
instrument
Sensitivity drift (also known as scale factor
drift) defines the amount by which an
instrument’s sensitivity of measurement varies
as ambient conditions change
 Statistic Characteristics
Examples statistic characteristics are:
Accuracy
precision
describing precision of measurements
To describe precision of measurements
mathematically a number of repeated
measurements should be taken
Describing accuracy of measurements
Most often accuracy of measurements are
described in terms of relative accuracy. That is

Accuracy also can be described as percentage

% accuracy = 100% - % error
 Statistical Analysis
Arithmetic mean
Deviation from mean
Average deviation
Standard deviation
 Errors in measurements
Error: it is the deviation of the true value
from the desired value
Errors may be expressed either as absolute
or percentage of error
Absolute error = true value –
measured value
 Errors in measurements
Types of measurement errors:
(a)Gross error:
(b)Systematic errors:
 Instruments errors:
Environmental errors:
Observational errors:
(c) Random errors:
(d) Limiting error:
 Types of measurement errors
(a)Gross error: This error is:
 Due to human mistakes in reading or
using instrument
 Due to incorrect adjustment of
instruments
And computational mistakes
 Due to improper use of an instrument
 can not be treated mathematically
 We can minimize, but can’t eliminate
them
 Types of measurement errors
(b)Systematic errors: These errors occur
due to short coming of instruments, such as
defective, worn parts or ageing of the
instrument. They are of three types:
 Instruments errors:
Environmental errors:
Observational errors:
 Types of systematic errors
 Instruments errors: are inherent in
measuring instruments because of their
mechanical structure
 They can be avoided by:
 Selecting suitable instrument for
particular measurement application
 Applying correction factors after knowing
amount of instrumental error
 Calibrating the instrument against a
standard
 Types of systematic errors
Environmental errors: these errors are due
to conditions external to the measuring device
such as : Effect of change in temperature,
humidity, barometric pressure, magnetic or
electrostatic field
Can be avoided by
Air conditioning
Magnetic shielding, etc
 Types of systematic errors
Observational errors: are errors introduced
by the observer
Example: parallax error introduced in
reading a meter scale and the error of
estimation when obtaining a reading from a
meter scale
Systematic errors can also be classified as:
static errors and
dynamic errors
 Types of measurement errors
(c) random errors: these are errors that
remain after gross and systematic errors have
been substantially reduced
These errors are due to unknown causes
and hence they can be analyzed statistically
(d)limiting error: most manufacturers of
measuring instruments specify accuracy
within a certain % of full scale reading this
specification is called a limiting error
 Dynamic Characteristics
The dynamic characteristic of a transducer
refers to the performance of the transducer
when it is subjected to time varying input
The general differential equation describing
the dynamic behavior is given by
 Dynamic Characteristics
According to the value of n, transducers are
categorized as:
Zero order(n=zero)
First order(n= one)
Second order(n=two)
Higher order(n> two)
 Response of transducers
(1) Time response of transducers
Zero order instruments
 Response of transducers
First order instruments
 Response of transducers
Second order instruments
Second order instruments
Second order instruments
Frequency response of transducers
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