Measurement and Instrumentation: An Introduction to Concepts and Methods, 1st Edition

Abstract

Measurement and instrumentation are fundamental elements of many engineering projects. From research, to development, to manufacturing, to user products, engineers are constantly needing to measure things: brightness of a light, dimensions of an object, separation between things, frequency content, stress, strain, pressure, voltage, etc. In the real world measuring systems are not perfect, so the results of a measurement are only an estimate of the true value. Instrumentation for making measurements relies on some fundamental assumptions to ensure the veracity of the measurements. Some key elements are: bandwidth, sampling rate, dynamic range, sensor type, etc. This text discusses the basic concepts of what a measurement is, how the instrumentation chosen (or developed) can affect the measurement, and how to deal with the measurement error that is in all instrumentation systems. Topics include data acquisition, signal conditioning, sensor types, and measurement noise and its various noise distributions. The text concludes with three user projects that bring together these topics into an informative work that reinforces the theory.