Chapter 4: Signal Conditioning

By Tesfaye M.
Electrical Measurements and Instrumentation
(Introduction to Instrumentation Engineering)
3/1/21

Debre Markos University

ደብረ ማርቆስ ዩኒቨርስቲ
Debre Markos Institute of Technology
ደብረ ማርቆስ ቴክኖሎጂ ኢንስቲትዩት
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Goals of this Chapter
• To expand your knowledge of sensors
• The types of signal conditioning and their applications for different sensors
and measurement types
• Discuss ways to optimize a measurement system to produce a higher quality
signal
• Design an appropriate signal conditioning configuration given a measurement
scenario and a chosen sensor

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 Signal Conditioning
• What is signal conditioning?

• Signal conditioning is the manipulation of a signal in a way that prepared it for

the next stage of processing.
• Common signal conditioning types include amplification, attenuation, filtering,
exciting, linearization, bridge completion, isolation and cold junction
compensation.
• There are many different types of sensors, some measure voltage or current,
while others measure resistance or capacitance.
 Signal Conditioning
• Signal conditioning is one of the most important components of a data
acquisition system because without optimizing real-world signals for the
digitizer in use, you cannot rely on the accuracy of the measurement.
• Signal conditioning is the technique of making a signal from a sensor or
transducer suitable for processing by data acquisition equipment.
• In a nutshell, signal conditioning takes a signal for your DAQ device to measure,
and makes it easier to measure.
• It is important to note that signal conditioning is not always required, as it
depends on the signal being measured.

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 Signal Conditioning
Transmit signal without signal conditioner

Transmit signal with signal conditioner

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 Signal Conditioning

• In some modern instrumentation systems, the amplified and filtered signal from
the sensor is directly digitized,
• the nonlinear operations are performed numerically on the samples by the host
DSP computer
• signal conditioning is often accomplished by use of operational amplifiers,
analog multipliers, and special designed IC
• Due to this OpAmp’s are the basic elements of many other signal conditioning
modules

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 Function of Signal Conditioner
• Signal amplification (OpAmp),
• Filtering (OpAmp, RLC),
• Interfacing with P (ADC),
• Protection(Zener & photo isolation),
• Linearization,
• Current – voltage change circuits,
• resistance change circuits (Wheatstone
bridge),
• error compensation….
• etc.

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 Types of Signal Condition
• Most signals require some form of preparation before they can be digitized.
Amplification
• Amplifiers increase voltage level to better match the analog-to-digital converter
(ADC) range, thus increasing the measurement resolution and sensitivity.

• locating external signal conditioners closer to the signal source, or transducer,

improves the measurement signal-to-noise ratio by magnifying the voltage level
before it is affected by environmental noise.
• Amplification increases a voltage signal to a level suitable for digitization by the
DAQ equipment.
• Typically a data acquisition device is calibrated for input voltages in the 0 to 10 V
range. A small voltage, such as that coming from a thermocouple or strain gauge
bridge may need to be amplified 1000 times to make it between 0 and 10 V.
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 Types of Signal Condition
Amplification

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 Types of signal conditioning
Amplification
• OpAmp are one of the most common component for constructing different types
of amplifier
• The description of op-amp, their characteristics and different schematics are
available in any standard book.
• So we will not spend time on that. Rater we will describe some schemes which
are commonly used in sensors applications.
Let’s start with a simple problem
problem 1
• A current sensor of very weak power source provides 10 mV for its full range.
The sensor is to be interfaced to a processor of maximum range of 1.2 V. Design a
suitable op-amp based circuit with schematic diagram.
solution: Decide the types of Operational Amplifier

sensor OpAmp microcontroller

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 Types of signal conditioning
Amplification
• A high input impedance non-inverting amplifier is required for this objective.
• The op-amp based schematic configuration is shown in figure . The sensor is
directly connected to the non-inverting input of the op-amp.
The gain = 1.2 V/ 10 mV = 120

• The non inverting amplifier expression is given by,

• This gives R1/R2 = 119. By choosing, R2 = 1 kΩ, we can have R1 = 119 kΩ.
Since 120 kΩ is a standard resistance, R1 can be chosen as 120 kΩ.
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 Types of signal conditioning
Amplification
•  
problem 2
A temperature sensor (thermocouple) provides an output of a difference voltage 210
mV over its operating range. Develop a signal conditioning circuit so that the output
becomes 0 V to 3.3 V for the operating range.
solution: Decide the types of Operational Amplifier
• Thermocouple gives us the differential output voltage, we use differential
operational amplifier
•
• =15.7

•
•

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 Types of signal conditioning
Amplification
• Other types of OpAmp application

Problem 3
The level shifter of Figure below has the ability to add or subtract a DC offset to or
from a signal. Analyze the circuit and design it, so that it can remove a 1.8V DC
offset from a sensor output signal.
Given:

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 Types of signal conditioning
solution
• Let’s assume ideal op-amp
• The output voltage can be computed quite easily if we note that, upon applying
the principle of superposition,
• the sensor voltage sees an inverting amplifier with gain (-RF /RS), while the
battery sees a noninverting amplifier with gain (1 + RF /RS).
• The output voltage due to the two source voltages

• The battery voltage become 1.714 (?)

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 Types of signal conditioning
Amplification
• Other types of OpAmp application

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 Types of signal conditioning
Other types of OpAmp application
• Instrumentation Amplifier

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 Types of signal conditioning
• Other types of OpAmp application

Reading assignment's
• Current-to-Voltage
• Voltage-to-current
• comparator
• Logarithmic amplifier

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 Types of signal conditioning
Attenuation
• Attenuation, the opposite of amplification, is necessary when voltages to be
digitized are beyond the ADC range.
• This form of signal conditioning decreases the input signal amplitude so that the
conditioned signal is within the ADC range.
• To attenuate a signal, one of the simplest circuit implementations is a voltage
divider.
• In a voltage divider, 2 resistors are placed in series to divide the supplied voltage
between them.
• The resulting output is defined by the ratio of resistors used, therefore, by
customizing the resistors you can customize the amount of attenuation.
• Additionally, a potentiometer could be used in place of one of the resistors to
create a variable attenuator.

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 Types of signal conditioning
Filtering
• Filters reject unwanted noise within a certain frequency range. Often, lowpass
filters are used to block out noise in electrical measurements, such as 50/60 Hz
power.
• Lowpass filters on our signal conditioning circuitry can eliminate unwanted high-
frequency components.
• However, be sure to select the filter bandwidth carefully so that the time response
of the signals is not affected.(during filter design)
• Another common use for filtering is to prevent aliasing from high-frequency
signals. This can be done by using an anti-aliasing filter to attenuate signals above
the Nyquist frequency. (AC signal measurement)
• anti-aliasing filters are ideal for sound and vibration applications.

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 Types of signal conditioning
Isolation
• Voltage signals well outside the range of the digitizer can damage the
measurement system and harm the operator.
• For that reason, isolation is usually required in conjunction with attenuation to
protect the system and the user from dangerous voltages or voltage spikes.
• E.g. isolation transformer, differential instrument(differential multimeter)

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 Types of signal conditioning
Excitation
• Excitation is required for many types of transducers. For example, strain gages,
accelerometers, thermistors, and RTDs require external voltage or current
excitation.
Linearization
• Linearization is necessary when sensors produce voltage signals that are not
linearly related to the physical measurement.
• Linearization, the process of interpreting the signal from the sensor, can be
implemented either with signal conditioning or through software.
• A thermocouple is the classic example of a sensor that requires linearization.

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 Types of signal conditioning
Wheatstone bridge
• One of the most used signal conditioning circuit. It can be used to convert a
resistance change to a voltage change
• The Wheatstone bridge is the electrical equivalent of two parallel voltage divider
circuits. R1 and R2 compose one voltage divider circuit, and R4 and R3 compose
the second voltage divider circuit.
• The output of a Wheatstone bridge, Vo, is measured between the middle nodes of
the two voltage dividers.
• General Wheatstone Bridge Circuit Diagram

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 Types of signal conditioning
•  The unknown resistance Rx is to be measured; resistances R1, R2 and R3 are known
and R2 is adjustable.
• The resistance R2 is adjusted until the bridge is "balanced" and no current flows
through the galvanometer . At this point, the voltage between the two midpoints (B
and D) will be zero.
• If the measured voltage VG is 0, then R2/R1 = Rx/R3.

• Detecting zero current with a galvanometer can be done to extremely high

precision. Therefore, if R1,R2,R3 and are known to high precision, then RX can
be measured to high precision.
• This setup is frequently used in strain gauge and resistance thermometer
measurements
• Wheatstone bridge are used to convert the output of resistive capacitive, and
inductive sensors into a voltage signal.

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 Types of signal conditioning

ADC/DAC signal conditioning

Consider the following motor control system

• We have microcontroller in this system, it understand us in the form of digital we

must convert analog signal to digital before we used the microcontroller
• The other system use analog signals. Thus we have ADC and DAC SIGNAL
CONDITIONING
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 Self test question

•Which of the following describes the correct sequence of events in the signal chain?
 
A. Transducer, Signal Source, Application Software, Signal Conditioning, Analog to
Digital Conversion
B. Analog to Digital Conversion, Transducer, Application Software, Signal Source,
Signal Conditioning
C. Signal Source, Signal Conditioning, Transducer, Application Software, Analog to
Digital Conversion
D. Signal Source, Transducer, Signal Conditioning, Analog to Digital Conversion,
Application Software

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THANK YOU…..

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