Data Acquisition and Analog & Digital Converters Report

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Introduction

There are many phases and procedures for handling the data and information. As in the today’s world of information technology every thing and every field is dependent over the use of information. The management of this information, collecting it and then processing and manipulating the information or data are the most important tasks or aspects of any process that is going to be performed.

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The task of data handling fist begins with the collection of data and the data is collected when it is being sensed from the devices like temperature sensors, pressure sensors and so on. Then after sensing and recognizing this data the data is then stored. This process is basically the main functionality of the data acquisition. In the process of data acquisition first the data is collected and then it is processed by sampling it. By sampling of data it is meant to divide the data in to some parts depending on the pre decided attribute according to which the data is sampled. Most of the times this pre decided attribute is any time interval set by the designer. This data is then processed by computer as well. Another name for data acquisition can also be DAQ and DAS. Basically the term acquisition here means the recognizing of signals and waveforms from a device and then after understanding these signals the task of data acquisition is to process these signals and waveforms in order to produce the required and desired data or result. Data acquisition is very much useful for recognizing and storing the data and information. This information can be used on the immediate basis or can be stored for the future use. (Data acquisition, 1)

Data Acquisition Systems

The data acquisition systems are set up in order to recognize the information from any particular device, collect that information store that information and then finally manipulate or process that information. This process is similar as data logging. In past this task of data logging or data acquisition was done by using the magnetic tape recorders and heavy equipments but now technology has improved the scenario and many new equipments which are light weight, robust, reliable and more technical have taken the space of old heavy equipment. The purpose is basically the storage and sensing of data. Different types of data can be collected by any data acquisition system like temperature, pressure, noise, voice, humidity and so on depending on the nature of the work for which the system has been implied. Mostly the electrical or physical information has to be collected. Data acquisition has been done from always but the technology has improved it to the large extent and has made this process, reliable, fast, quick, easy and robust. (Data acquisition systems, 1)

Parts of Data Acquisition System

There are three basic parts of any data acquisition system. Following are the three main parts or components of the data acquisition system and these are the basic elements of any data acquisition system and are general as well.

  1. I/O sub system
  2. Host computer
  3. Software for controlling.

All the above stated components are general and can be used in any data acquisition system. Most of the times, these systems also need a way to communicate with each other. The most common interfaces which allow the components of the system to communicate with in the system are PXI bus, PCI bus, Ethernet, USB and serial I/O. CAN bus, GPIB and Fire wire are few of the other structures that are being used in data acquisition systems now. Actually the data acquisition systems are electronic systems and it needs both the hard ware and soft ware. The hardware part basically comprises of wires, cables, sensors, fibers and many other small electronic components. Basically this is the part which is using the equipment that will be used to collect the data. Whereas, on the other hand, the software part consists of software for controlling the system, logic of data acquisition and software for the analysis of data. There are few more soft wares or utilities that lie under this part of the systems including the utilities that will help in moving the data from one memory or place to another and is also helpful in manipulating with the logics and information. (Data acquisition systems, 1)

Operations of Data Acquisition Systems

Many operations and tasks are being performed by data acquisition systems but few of the operations are listed under:

  1. Sensing and Recognizing the input
  2. recording the input
  3. Storing the input
  4. Processing the recorded data
  5. Manipulating with the data.
  6. Measuring the output
  7. Recording the signals of the output.
  8. Accessing and then using the stored data.
  9. Analysis of the recorded data.

These are the basic functionalities of the data acquisition systems and these operations are performed by every data acquisition system. Other features and functionalities keep on varying depending on the nature of the task for which the system is being established. But the above mentioned facilities are necessary for any data acquisition system. (Data acquisition systems, 1)

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Types of Data Acquisition Systems

There are four types of data acquisition systems which are described below; the designer can implement the one which is very much close to the requirements of the system.

  1. Serial Communication Data Acquisition Systems:

Serial communication data acquisition systems are very much useful to implement when the system is away from the host computer. The serial communication data acquisition systems are capable of recording the measurements even from a distance from the computer. These systems do not need to be operated just in front of the computer or near the computer. Different standards of communication are used in the serial communication data acquisition systems like RS232, RS485 and so on but the most common is RS232; although this standard is common but it has a limitation of 50 feet which means that it can only operate when the computer is at a distance of 50 km and if the system and the computer are having a difference that is more than 50km then this communication standard will not work. On the other hand RS485 has provided with more support to the distance and can operate even at a range of 5000 kms. So RS485 is getting popular due to its high range.

  1. USB Data Acquisition Systems:

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus; it is another type of data acquisition system. It is some how a new technique of data acquisition systems and it allows making connections between the personal computers and devices. The devices that can be connected along with the PC include printers, modems, monitors and many other devices that are used for the purpose of data acquisition. This technique of data acquisition using the universal serial bus is very much beneficial and it is more advantageous as compared to the other old techniques of data acquisition. This type of systems provides high bandwidths that are of 12Mbits/s and they are also efficient in providing the power to the devices that are attached to the computer. With the passage of time this type of data acquisition system is getting popular and becoming the top most choice for the purpose of data acquisition. It establishes a system that is not very much complex as all the devices would definitely have a USB port in it and only one cable will be required to make the connection between the peripheral device and the computer.

  1. Data Acquisition Plug in Boards:

These are the computerized data acquisition boards that are completely designed and are ready to be plugged in to the computer bus directly. This is another a new invention or technology in the field of data acquisition systems as they are very much fast and there is no comparison of speed of data acquisition plug in boards to any other data acquisition system. These data acquisition plug in boards provide more speed because these are directly plugged in to the computer bus. Another benefit of using these data acquisition plug in boards is their cost. It is very much cost effective as the power is being provided by the computer itself not by the data acquisition system and also the cost of packaging is also eliminated as it is designed over a single board. These boards are actually offered by the IBM PC and are designed in such a way that they are compatible. The properties and functionalities of the board are different for different kinds; it depends on the number of inputs, nature of inputs, number of outputs, nature of outputs, speed and many other features. Every data acquisition plug in board that is installed in the PC must be having a different and unique input output map location. This map is also residing in the computer and is providing all the locations of the specific devices and the processor can use this map in order to gain access to different devices and finding out their locations.

  1. Parallel Port Data Acquisition Systems:

The parallel port that is present in the computer for the connection of the printers most commonly. This parallel port can also be used for the connection of any device that is capable of data acquisition. If such connection is made to the parallel port of the computer then this data acquisition system is able to provide high sampling rate. The only limitation of this type of data acquisition system is that it does not support big distance between the computer and the device. For this reason this type of data acquisition system is not used in most of the cases. As now with the emergence of new technologies; it is desired to have a system that can support the system even at some distance. (Data acquisition, 1)

Configurations of Data Acquisition Systems

There are two ways in which the data acquisition systems can be configured.

  1. External Box:

The name simply shows that it is something that is not designed internally and is attached separately from outside. Mostly the buses, Universal serial bus, Ethernet, PCI bus and so on are all the systems that are external. There are many advantages of the external configuration but the most important one is that they can bring close to the system with which it has to work or it can be located near to the sensors and other devices from which it has to log out the data. So these external systems reduce the use of wires, cables, fibers and so on which are used to connect the system to the input and output. This approach also helps in reducing and even some times eliminating the amount of noise that is produced due to the length of the wirings. This type of configuration in which the system is placed close to the entity whose measurements have to be taken also saves the time that is used for making the wiring connections and also the cost of connection management is also reduced.

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  1. Internal Plug In Board Configuration:

There are many internal systems; these are the systems that are established internally like PCI and PCI express. The advantage of this type of configuration is that they are plugged close to the controlling system instead of being close to the entity whose measurement has to be taken. This type of configuration that is plug in board data acquisition systems are very fast as compared to the external box data acquisition systems and therefore they are capable of collecting the data at very much high speed. It is a big advantage that is being provided as it was the only disadvantage of the external box data acquisition systems. The speed has always been an important feature and the plug in board data acquisition systems has solved this problem to the large extent. There are obviously many other reasons for which this configuration is getting popular. One more strong reason for using this type of configuration of data acquisition systems is the availability of everything at one place.

Although both of the systems and configurations have their own advantages as well as their disadvantages. It is the choice of the designer that what device he wants to select and for what reason. It all depends on the use and need of the system and the task that is going to be performed. With the developments in the technology it is being seen that the external box configuration of data acquisition systems are also getting popular as the technology is making them more intelligent and efficient. So there is not much difference of benefits between these two types of configurations now. Both of the configurations have some advantages and some of the disadvantages as well so the decision is left over the user that what advantages he wants to take and what are the things that he can ignore and would not cost much of not having them in his system (Data acquisition systems, 1).

Analog to Digital Converters

Analog to digital converters are very much commonly used in the data acquisition systems. Analog to Digital converters or ADCs are used to covert the signal that is analog in nature in to the digital form. The analog signals are received by the wires or the entity whose data is being measured and are then fed in to the ADCs which then convert them in to the digital form and then these signals are processed for the output. In order to understand the concept of analog to digital converters it would be better to get the concept of analog signals and digital signals.

Analog Signals

An analog signal is a continuous signal. It does not follow the discrete way or nature of pulses. In analog signals any feature that is varying with time is able to represent some other feature that is time varying. There are many interruptions in the analog signals and all these interruptions are meaningful. It can be said that the analog signals are the copy of one feature that is varying with time to another. Mostly in today’s technological systems the data is always represented in the digital format and for this reason most of the times the analog signals are transformed in to the digital format because there are some lack nesses in the analog signals. The biggest disadvantage of analog signals is that they produce a lot of noise which is obviously not wanted and the signal is disturbed. These noises and disturbances become more prominent when the signal has to be transmitted over the long distances. So most of the times in majority of the cases analog signals are not the right choice of the designer as due to the production of noise the signal is disturbed and obviously the accurate information is not reaching to the destination. There is no other way to remove this disturbance instead of making the signal digitized (Definition: analog signal, 1).

Digital Signals

Digital signals are mostly the sampled form of the analog signals. The signals are sampled or quantized according to some pre decided feature or property. Mostly this division is made on the basis of time. The time intervals are selected and then the signals are sampled according to that time interval. In other words it can be explained that the digital signals are measured on some particular time interval where as the analog signals are being measured continuously. The digital signals do not have disturbing elements in them as they are very clear and they are represented as the binary digits mostly as 0 and 1. The digital signals are the sequence of bits therefore they are easy to understand by the computer. (Wotel, 1)

Method of Converting Analog Signals in to Digital Signals:

Signals that exist in the real world are basically analog in nature like the words we say or the light we see all of these are analog signals. These signals are then converted in to the digital format so that the information can be understood by the computer easily without any noise by using the devices named analog to digital converters. These signals are sampled or quantized and the disturbances are eliminated from them. The samples are made on the bases of predetermined time intervals over which the measurements are being made and are converted in to the digital form. The digital form is easy to understand as the pulses are very much obvious and clear. Obviously the analog to digital converters are very much essential for any data acquisition systems as for producing the results over computer and for producing the results which are disturbance and noise free it is necessary to convert the signals from digital to analog (Torres, 1).

Evolution of Data Acquisition Systems

Due to the increasing use of data and information the need of data acquisition is also getting important. There will be a time when the need of data acquisition systems will become undeniable because in all the fields like networking, information technology and so on the recording and recognizing of data are becoming an important part. When there is use of ADCs in the data acquisition systems then there are no tensions of low level signals or the distorted signals. The data acquisition systems are useful for the improvement of efficiency, improvement of performance, accuracy of measurement, reliability of result and assurance of quality (What is data acquisition and data logging, 1).

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The analog to digital converter that is applied in ADLINK PCI- 9221 card is multi purpose and multifunctional that is integrated in to the system and it has a sampling rate of 250kS/s.

Works Cited

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  2. Data acquisition: definition (no date)
  3. Data acquisition systems- definition and description (no date)
  4. Definition: (no date) Web.
  5. Paul Wotel, Analog, Digital, What is the difference? (no date)
  6. Gabriel Torres, How analog to digital converter works (2006)
  7. What is data acquisition and data logging (no date)
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"Data Acquisition and Analog & Digital Converters." IvyPanda, 20 Oct. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/data-acquisition-and-analog-amp-digital-converters/.

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IvyPanda. (2021) 'Data Acquisition and Analog & Digital Converters'. 20 October.

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IvyPanda. 2021. "Data Acquisition and Analog & Digital Converters." October 20, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/data-acquisition-and-analog-amp-digital-converters/.

1. IvyPanda. "Data Acquisition and Analog & Digital Converters." October 20, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/data-acquisition-and-analog-amp-digital-converters/.


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IvyPanda. "Data Acquisition and Analog & Digital Converters." October 20, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/data-acquisition-and-analog-amp-digital-converters/.

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