CONTROL SYSTEM SKILLS

Data Acquisition In Your Pocket

Data acquisition, or DAQ, brings to mind the recording of test or manufacturing data in real time on a personal computer (PC) or data logger.

But new adjectives are beginning to describe the current state of data acquisition, such as smaller, faster, easier-to-use and virtual.

“Really, DAQ is taking [a measurement of] a real-world phenomenon, such as temperature or pressure; passing a signal through a transducer; digitizing it in a PC-based or stand-alone device; and then saving it to a disk and/or displaying it on a panel,” explains Jared Aho, technical product manager, DAQ Group, for automation vendor National Instrument (NI, www.ni.com), Austin, Texas.

Doing all this requires more than just a device. Signal conditioning is needed to connect different sensors, and usually some electrical protection, such as isolation, is required, Aho says. “And then the other part of the system is the software.” Read more

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