Language
Country/Area
No result found
From sensors to digital signals: How to magically transform physical changes into data?
In today's digital era, data has become an important resource driving all walks of life. Data acquisition, as a key process in converting physical changes in the physical world into digital signals, undoubtedly plays an important role in this process.
A data acquisition system (referred to as DAS, DAQ or DAU) typically converts analog waveforms into digital values for processing.
The main components of a data acquisition system include sensors, signal conditioning circuits, and analog-to-digital converters. The function of the sensor is to convert physical parameters into electrical signals, while the signal conditioning circuit ensures that the sensor signal can be converted into a digital value in a suitable form. This series of transformations is an important step in enabling computers to understand and process data from the real world.
Sources and systems of data acquisition
The process of data acquisition begins with the physical phenomenon or physical property that needs to be measured. These properties may include temperature, vibration, light intensity, gas pressure, fluid flow and force, etc. Whatever the physical property is to be measured, it needs to be converted into a unified form that can be sampled by the data acquisition system, and this task is accomplished by devices called sensors.
A complete data acquisition system includes DAQ hardware, sensors and actuators, signal conditioning hardware, and a computer running DAQ software. With the advancement of technology, some current sensors and data acquisition systems can now stream signals through Bluetooth, which undoubtedly improves the convenience of data collection.
DAQ Hardware
DAQ hardware is usually the intermediary between the signal and the computer. It can be a module connected to a computer port (such as parallel, serial, USB, etc.) or a card connected to a PC motherboard slot (such as S-100 bus, ISA, PCI, etc.). DAQ cards usually contain various components such as multiplexers, ADCs (analog-to-digital converters), DACs (digital-to-analog converters), etc., which are accessed by a microcontroller.
DAQ device driver is a necessary condition for DAQ hardware to work with PC. The driver performs reading and writing of low-level registers and provides API for developing user applications.
DAQ software
Professional DAQ software is usually provided with DAQ hardware. Software tools used to build large-scale data acquisition systems include EPICS and so on. In addition, programming environments such as Visual C++, Visual Basic, LabVIEW, and MATLAB are also widely used to build DAQ applications.
In the context of the rapid development of data science and sensor technology, the flexibility and adaptability of DAQ systems are increasingly valued.
History of data acquisition
Looking back at the history of data acquisition, in 1963, IBM launched a specialized data acquisition computer, marking the beginning of this technology. With the advancement of technology, IBM launched the personal computer in 1981 and provided the first PC data acquisition product, which greatly lowered the entry barrier and allowed more people to use data acquisition technology to conduct research and experiments.
Future Outlook
With the rise of Internet of Things technology, the role of data acquisition systems will become increasingly important. In the future, these systems may not be limited to traditional physical measurements, but will incorporate more intelligent technologies to achieve more efficient data processing and applications.
When we look back on this process, we may be able to think about how data acquisition technology will change the face of our daily lives?
