SENSOR AND ACTUATOR

CHAPTER 2:

Static characteristic of sensor

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Review of pervious lecture

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• Transducer is a device or mechanism that convert

an energy form one form to another form.
Basically, Transducer is a energy converting
device

•Sensor is a device that convert energy from one

form to the electrical signal.

•Actuator is a device that convert the electrical

signal to physical form
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There are three main factors that use for choosing

a sensor:

• Environmental factor

• Sensor characteristic

• Economic factor
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Sensor characteristic

Static characteristic Dynamic characteristic

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Static characteristic
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To understand about static characteristic, three

main questions have to be answer:

• what is static characteristic?

• why we need to study about it?

• what kind of the property that need to study for

understanding static characteristic?
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1. Definition
• The set of criteria defined for the instruments,
which are used to measure the quantities which are
slowly varying with time or mostly constant, i.e.,
do not vary with time, is called ‘static
characteristics’.

• Static characteristic of a system (sensor) is a

property of system after all the transient effects
have settled to their final or steady state
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2. Main property of static characteristic

Property of static characteristic are:

• Range

• Sensitivity

• Resolution

• Accuracy and Precision

• Hysteresis
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• Linearity/Non-linearity

• Repeatability

• Threshold

• Drift

• Stability

• Tolerance

• Error
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A. Range

• The minimum and maximum values of a quantity for

which an instrument is designed to measure is
called its range or span.

• Operation range, full scale input ,span: is the

range of input that produce a meaning full output

• Full scale output: difference between the end

point of the output
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• Dynamic range: the ratio of the highest to the

lowest of input. It measure in dB.

FSI=xmax  xmin

FSO= y max  y min

xmax
Dynamic range=20log( )
xmin
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B. Sensitivity

• Sensitivity: denotes as the smallest change in

the measured variable to which the instrument
responds. It is defined as the ratio of the
changes in the output of an instrument to a
change in the value of the quantity to be
measured. Mathematically it is expressed as:
y
S=
x
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Output

y
FSO S=
x 𝛥𝑦

𝛥𝑥

Offset
Input
FSI
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C. Resolution

• Resolution is the smallest increment of input

that produce a detectable output.

•If the input is slowly increased from some

arbitrary input value, it will again be found
that output does not change at all until a
certain increment is exceeded. This increment is
called resolution.
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Output

200mV

300mV

Input
0.1Kpa
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Pressure sensor Multimeter

Resolution=0.6V

Output
600mV
500mV
200mV

Input
0.1Kpa
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Example:

Temperature sensor Multimeter

S=10mV/C Resolution=30mV
Input=0-50oC Input range=0-1V

Is this system is good enough to detected

temperature with resolution of 1oC? If it can why?
If it can’t, what should we do?
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D. Accuracy

It is the degree of closeness with which the reading

approaches the true value of the quantity to be
measured. The accuracy can be expressed in following
ways:

• Point accuracy: Such accuracy is specified at only

one particular point of scale. It does not give any
information about the accuracy at any other Point
on the scale.
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• Accuracy as a percentage of full scale: When an

instrument as uniform scale, its accuracy may be
expressed in terms of scale range

• Accuracy as a percentage of reading: its accuracy

may be expressed in terms of a percentage of true
value.
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y m  yt
Percentage of reading (%)=  100%
yt
y m  yt
Percentage of full scale (%)=  100%
FSO
Where ym is the measurement value, yt is the true
value or expected value and FSO is full scale
output.
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Output

True value

Input
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E. Precision

• Precision: represents capacity of a sensing

system to give the same reading when repetitively
measuring the same measurand under the same
conditions. The precision is a statistical
parameter and can be assessed by the standard
deviation (or variance) of a set of readings of
the system for similar inputs
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F. Reproducibility

• Reproducibility When all operating and

environmental conditions remain constant,
repeatability is the sensing system’s ability to
produce the same response for successive
measurements. Repeatability is closely related to
precision.
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Example:

Three pressure sensors are tested for

repeatability. The same 1Kpa pressure is used on
each sensor 10 times. The result data are given in
the following table. Discuss the accuracy and
repeatability of each sensor. if the output of
these sensor should be 10 mV at 1kpa
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Example:
Presure sensor (mV)
Trail No
A B C
1 10.02 11.5 10
2 10.96 11.53 10.03
3 11.2 11.52 10.02
4 9.39 11.47 9.93
5 10.5 11.42 9.92
6 10.94 11.51 10.01
7 9.02 11.58 10.08
8 9.47 11.5 10
9 10.08 11.43 9.97
10 9.32 11.48 9.98
Maximum 11.2 11.58 10.08
Average 10.09 11.494 9.994
Minimum 9.02 11.42 9.92
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Example:
Sensor A
11.5
11.2

10.96 10.94
11

10.5
10.5

10.08
10.02
10
Output

9.47
9.5 9.39
9.32

9.02
9

8.5

8
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Number of trial
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Example:
Sensor B
12

11.53 11.52 11.58

11.5 11.47 11.51 11.5 11.48
11.42 11.43
11.5

11

10.5
Output

10

9.5

8.5

8
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Number of trial
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Example:
Sensor C
11

10.8

10.6

10.4

10.2
Output

10.08
10 10.03 10.02 10.01 10 9.97 9.98
10 9.93 9.92

9.8

9.6

9.4

9.2

9
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Number of trial
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Example:

Measured average
Measured value

Random error

Systematic error
Or biased error

True or expected output

Trial No
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G. Hysteresis

Hysteresis: define as difference in the output of

a sensor for a given input value x, when x is
increase and decrease or vice versa (expression in
% of FSO)

yincrease  ydecrease
Hysteresis h(%)=  100%
ytrue
yincrease  ydecrease
Hysteresis h(%)=  100%
FSO
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Example:

Small value Medium value Large value

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I. Linearity/ Non-linearity

• Linearity/ Non-linearity A measure of deviation

from the linear of the sensor which usually
descried in term of percentage (FSO)

y measurement  yLinear
Linearity L(%)=  100%
FSO
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Example:

Maximum
nonlinearity
Output (%FSO)

Best-fit straight line

Measurand range (% range)

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Example:

Maximum
Output (%FSO) nonlinearity

Terminal-based line

Measurand range (% range)

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I. Threshold

If the instrument input is increased very

gradually from zero there will be some minimum
value below which no output change can be
detected. This minimum value defines the threshold
of the instrument.
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J. Drift

There are two types of drift:

• Zero thermal drift: Drift from the null reading

when the measurand is maintained steady at the
null position (can be zero or any other value
corresponding to the null reading of the
instrument)
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• Thermal sensitivity drift: If there is

proportional change in the indication all along
the upward scale, the drifts is called span drift
or sensitivity drift

Both type of drift is consider as the error.

Overall performance e=|eL |  | eST |  | eZT |

Overall performance e= e2L  e2ST  e2ZT
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Example:

Zero drift
Ideal characteristic

Thermal zero error

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Example:

Sensitivity drift

Ideal characteristic

Sensitivity drift

Thermal sensitivity error

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K. Stability

It is the ability of an instrument to retain its

performance throughout is specified operating
life.

L. Tolerance

The maximum allowable error in the measurement is

specified in terms of some value which is called
tolerance
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M. Error

Error is the difference between the actual value

of the measurand and the value produced by the
sensing system. Error can be caused by a variety
of internal and external sources and is closely
related to accuracy. Accuracy can be related to
absolute or relative error.
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END