Archive for November, 2009
When It Comes To Data Acquisition Systems, Input Usually Winds Up In The Digital Realm
November 17th, 2009 | 
Author: When data acquisition systems first became standard in hospitals and labs around the world, the signal that was being gathered usually traveled through the system in an analog format up until the data was actually collated. These days there are many benefits to having the signal in digital format as it moves through the system.
The first step in data acquisition starts with measuring something. Whether it’s temperature or pulse rate there is a physical phenomenon or property of an object that must be measured and tracked. Most data acquisition systems can handle a wide range of input but regardless of what is being measured the original source needs to be converted from a physical property into a corresponding measurable electrical signal.
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Blue Eyes – Monitoring Human – Operator System
Blue Eyes
Monitoring Human-Operator System
ABSTRACT:
Human error is still one of the most frequent causes of catastrophe and ecological disasters. The main reason is that the monitoring systems concern only the state of the processes where as human contribution to the overall performance of the system is left unsupervised. Since the control instruments are automated to a large extent, a human operator becomes a passive observer of the supervised system, which results in weariness and vigilance drop.
Thus, he may not notice important changes of indications causing financial or ecological consequences and a threat to human life. It therefore is crucial to assure that the operatorâs conscious brain is involved in an active system supervising over the whole work time period. It is possible to measure indirectly the level of the operator’s conscious brain involvement using eye motility analysis.
Tags: Wireless Data Communications
Wireless data acquisition is the latest technological marvel. Tired of messy wires dangling all over your rooms? Need a tangle-free, uncomplicated way to transfer and receive data? What if your data could just magically zoom from one device to another without your even seeing it? This is just what WiFi and Bluetooth technologies do. It may surprise some of you to know that the block diagram of a wireless data acquisition system looks exactly the same as one with wires. This is because only the wired network is removed and replaced by the wireless one. Everything else remains the same. The only difference is, instead of data going over wires, it travels wirelessly.
So what makes this magic work? Usually, a wireless capable transmitter is fitted onto a transducer. This transmitter will be in sync with all the standard communication protocol. The Wifi or Bluetooth enabled transmitter may be placed within in the transducer itself. This helps the creators to get the signal over a wire less system from the transducer. Because only digital signals could be sent over such networks, using the regular WiFi or a Bluetooth is not possible under these circumstances. So these get sent as an RF signal. Before using it at the destination point, the RF signal is isolated and its value is taken.
Accurate Real-time Data Acquisitions Works for Environmental Catalyst Technology
According to Hertzler’s CEO, Evan J Miller, “Our clients, like ECT, know that accurate data acquisition solutions are vital to efficiency, cost-savings, and time-savings. Only when these real-time data are available can a company improve their process.”
Chad Roehner explained that, “Statistical Process Control (SPC) software by Hertzler Systems, was obtained for our catalyst division, Environmental Catalyst Technology (ECT). We use the software to monitor our catalyst processing. We looked at Gainseeker (Hertzler’s software solution) to allow us to have tighter control on our processing. Our failure rate is extremely low however gaining a tighter control on our processing allows us to give the customers exactly what he wants and what he has paid for. The software allows us to have more quality checks and gives us real time feed back so in the event that some would get out of spec we have the capability to immediately correct the situation or if we need to quarantine the product so out a spec product does not reach the customers. In providing catalysts/catalytic converters, we have to insure that they work 100% of the time and our customers rely on that from us.”
New Data Acquisition Card Features High Resolution and High Speed from Gao
Toronto, Canada – GAO Instruments (www.GAOInstruments.com) announced today the availability of the newest addition to its data acquisition products, the PCI4712 parallel data acquisition card. The four-channel, single-ended card features a 12-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and four independent programmable amplifiers. It is widely used for transient signal recording, refined frequency synthesis, multi-channel parallel acquisition systems and time-phase-sensitive acquisition.
This parallel data acquisition card offers a maximum sampling rate of 50Msps and refined sampling rates from 100sps to 50Msps. The high resolution card supports all-electronic calibration – there are no POTs on the card to adjust. Remote dynamic upgrade service and voltage signal acquisition range from 100mV to 20V. The maximum sampling depth of each channel is up to 16M.