Engineering Instrumentations_ ME471

Chapter 6: Signal Conditioning

Circuits
HW#4
HW: 6.5, 6.6,6.7,6.8,6.9, 6.11, 6.12, 6.13, 6.22

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 6.1Introduction:

 We need to condition the output from the transducer

so that it can be displayed by a voltage-measuring
instrument.
 PowerSupply: Generally, transducers are driven with
either a constant-voltage (CV) or constant-current
(CC) power supply.
 BatterySupplies: Regular battery, simple, less
expensive, provide reasonable constant voltage
with large current flow. but the voltage decays with
time under load. To eliminate this problem use a
simple regulating circuit incorporating a Zener diode.

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 Battery Special features

Lead-calcium For large power

Rechargeable (LCR) requirements

Nickel-cadmium Small and exhibit lower

capacities

Lithium: High voltages, low decay of voltage

-Lithium manganese dioxide under load, long life, high energy
(MnO2 or Li-M) Density. compatible with the AA and
-Lithium-thionyl chloride AAA formats. But, they are higher
(LiSOCI2 or LTC) price and have transportation issues
-Lithium sulfur dioxide (LiSo2)
-Lithium Polymer and Lithium Ion
due to the lithium metal content in
(use for smartphones) the anode.

Zinc-carbon one of the earliest and least expensive

primary batteries. It delivers 1.5V. And has
Low current.

Alkaline Or Alkaline-manganese, is an improved

version of the zinc-carbon battery and
delivers 1.5V. Invented on 1949 in, Ohio,
USA. it delivers more energy at higher load
currents than zinc-carbon.
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 6.2.2 Line Voltage Supplies:
Use the general-purpose power supplies that convert an ac line voltage to a lower dc
power supply, which is capable of delivering nearly constant voltage or constant current.

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 Consist of:
 Transformer: to either raise or lower voltages and currents in
an electrical circuit.
 Rectifier: to convert the ac line voltage to dc output voltage.
 Filter: to reduce the ripple resulting from the rectification
 Transistor series regulator: between the filter and the
output to further improve the ripple and regulation

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 6.3 Potentiometer Circuit (Constant voltage-CV)
To convert the transducer output ∆R/R to a voltage signal ∆v . The open-circuit output
voltage:

Non linear
relation

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 : non linear term

r= 9 for many application

Check the class example

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8
 Example:
A strain gage with R= 350 Ω, S= 2 is used to monitor a signal with amplitude of 1200 µ in/in
and frequency = 200 Hz. A constant volt potentiometer circuit is used to convert the
resistance change into voltage. Assume vs= 8v and r= 2.
1- Determine the output volt.

= S*strain =2*1200= 2400

= (2/9)* 2400*8 = 4.26 mv

2- find the circuit sensitivity ?

= (2/9)*8 = 1.777 V

3- If this strain gauge can dissipate 0.25Watt power. Determine the input voltage Vs
required to maximize the output volt.
P = v02/R1 == 0.25 = v02/ 350 v0 = 9.35 v

Vs = (1+2)*9.35 = 28 v
 6.4 Potentiometer Circuit (Constant current-CC)
Convert the transducer output ∆R/R to a voltage signal ∆v .
The open-circuit output voltage:

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 6.5 Wheatstone Bridge (Constant voltage-CV)
 To convert a change in resistance to an output voltage. Derivation is required!

Expanding and
neglecting the
higher order terms

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  the sensitivity with CV power supply and a single active arm:

Check the class example….

**6.6 Wheatstone Bridge (Constant current-CC):

(self Study)

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Example: A strain gage with R= 350 Ω, p= 0.25, S= 2.05 is used in arm 1 in a CV
Wheatstone bridge, if the available power supply is limited to 28 v. find:
1) R2,R3, and R4 needed to maximize Vo

28 = (1+r )* sqrt(0.25*350) ====== r = 1.99

r = R2/R1
1.99 = R2/350 ========R2= 698Ω

350R3 = 698R4 …… Choose R3 = 698 Ω then R4 = 350 Ω

2) Find the circuit sensitivity of the bridge

Sc = 1.99 /2.99 *( sqrt(350*0.25)) = 6.23 v

3) If the strain gauge is subjected to a stain of 1200Microns Find V0.

V0 = 1.99 /2.99^2 *( 2.05*1200e-6 )* 28 = 15.3mV

 6.7Amplifiers
- In many cases, signals from transducers are weak and must be
amplified before they can be used to drive an output device.
- In other cases, a serious mismatch between the impedance of the
transducer and that of the output circuit exists. So amplifiers act
like interfaces to allow effective impedance matching.
- Most amplifiers today are based on solid-state devices or
integrated circuits.
- So, amplifiers use to increase low-level signals from a transducer to
a level sufficiently high for recording with a voltage measuring
instrument.

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 Vo = G3Vi
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 6.8 Operational Amplifiers ( op-amp)

 Operational amplifiers (op-amp)

 An (op-amp) is an integrated circuit consisting of miniaturized
transistors, diodes, resistors, and capacitors, which have been
placed on a small silicon chip to form the complete amplifier
circuit .
 Op- amps serve many functions because they can easily be adapted
to perform several mathematical operations. They have extremely
high gain ( typical G=10^5) with high input impedance and small
output impedance.
 Operate from dc to a frequency of up to1 MHz.

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 6.8.1 Inverting & Non-Inverting amplifiers

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 6.8.3 Voltage follower
 Uses to adjust the impedance between the transducers and the
voltage recording instrument.
 Uses to eliminate loading effects (e.g., connecting a device with a
high source impedance to a device with a low input impedance).
 Voltage follower is known as unity gain buffer amplifier.
 Both the connections to and from the buffer are
bridging connections: which reduce power consumption in the
source, distortion from overloading, crosstalk and
other electromagnetic interference.

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 6.8.4 Summing Amplifier

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 6.8.5 & 6.8.6 Integrating and differentiating
Amplifiers

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 Signal Conditioning
 To reduce the effect of noise on “true” signal
 We need of filtering electrical signals. This term means that we desire circuits
which transmit or pass only certain bands or ranges of frequencies of an input
signal.
 Prior knowledge of signals, such as frequency and amplitude range, is important
for signal conditioning
 Filters involve amplification to eliminate losses
 Example: if atmospheric temperatures are being measured, it is reasonable to expect that
such temperatures will not change significantly over times shorter than several minutes.
As a consequence, the meaningful output voltage of a thermocouple includes only the
low-frequency part. Higher-frequency components are noise due to random fluctuations
and can be eliminated without loss of experimental information.

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 6.9 Filters: eliminate the noise that is combined to the
measured signal
6.9.1 High-pass RC filter:

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 6.9.2 low-pass RC filter:

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 W = 2 *pi*10
R = 32
C= 0.1

Vo/Vi = 0.97

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 Active filter

Is a combination of a basic RC Filter

circuit with an operational amplifier as
shown in Figure.

Example: Design a non-inverting active low pass filter circuit that has a gain of 10 at low
frequencies, a high frequency cut-off or corner frequency of 159Hz and an input impedance
of 10KΩ.

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  Example:
A simple RC circuit is to be used as a lowpass filter. It is desired that the
output voltage be attenuated 3 dB at 100 Hz. Calculate the required value
of time constant T = RC.

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  Example:

 highpass RC filter is to be designed for an attenuation of −3 dB at

150 Hz. Calculate the required value of the time constant and the
attenuation of the filter at 100, 200, and 400 Hz. What is the
limiting insertion loss at higher frequencies?

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