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NI Tutorial 4869 en
NI Tutorial 4869 en
Overview
Measurement accuracy is one of the most important specifications of any data acquisition (DAQ) system. The following five technologies show why the new high-accuracy National Instruments M Series devices are the world's most accurate multifunction data acquisition devices. Review the real experimental data in this paper to compare the accuracy of the 18-bit NI PCI-6289 to that of the 16-bit NI PCI-6229 M Series devices.
Table of Contents
1. The Worlds Most Accurate Multifunction Data Acquisition Device 2. 1. Make Measurements with 4X Improvement in Analog Resolution 3. 2. Minimize Noise with Onboard Lowpass Filter 4. 3. Increase Signal Integrity with Low-Noise NI-PGIA 2 Input Amplifier 5. 4. Correct for Nonlinearity with New Third-Order Calibration Technology 6. 5. Maximize Analog Output Resolution with User-Defined Offset and Range 7. Take Advantage of the Worlds Best Multifunction DAQ Absolute Accuracy Specifications
Figure 1. Use 18-bit resolution to more accurately digitize small voltages. The substantial increase in device resolution available with the NI 628x DAQ devices increases measurement capabilities because it can measure voltages that other multifunction data acquisition devices could never detect. Though ADC resolution theoretically determines the smallest resolvable voltage, it does not tell the whole story on a devices measurement capabilities.
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Figure 2. Lowpass filters improve measurement sensitivity and reject undesired noise. The filter is a second-order lowpass filter with a fixed cutoff frequency of 40 kHz. When enabled, the 40 kHz cutoff frequency eliminates any unwanted high frequencies and wideband noise that would otherwise be present within the 750 kHz device bandwidth. The lowpass filter has a fully balanced design just like the 18-bit ADC and the low-noise, fast-settling NI-PGIA 2 amplifier. The high-accuracy M Series devices thereby contain a fully balanced signal path from input amplifier to ADC. The fully balanced design ensures maximum noise rejection along the entire signal path. NI-DAQmx driver and measurement services software provides the seamless integration necessary to easily obtain the added accuracy in your analog measurements from using the onboard lowpass filters. As shown in Figure 3, enabling or disabling the onboard lowpass filter is as simple as writing a true or false to a NI-DAQmx Channel Property Node.
Figure 3. Programmatically enable the onboard filter to increase accuracy using NI-DAQmx driver and measurement services software.
Figure 4. The programmable gain instrumentation amplifier on the high-accuracy M Series is optimized for fast settling.
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Figure 5. NI-MCal correctly calibrates the analog measurement after digitization. NI-MCal calibration technology has three primary benefits that contribute to generating the most accurate measurements possible. First, at the heart of the technology is an algorithm that determines a set of third-order polynomial coefficients to accurately translate the digital code of an ADC into voltage data. In addition to correcting offset and gain errors, the third-order polynomial provides compensation for nonlinearity error -- an error not previously corrected by traditional two-point calibration techniques. Next, NI-MCal provides self-calibration at all input ranges by dynamically loading the channel-calibration parameters while keeping up with high-speed, multichannel acquisition. Self-calibration at all input ranges means accurate measurements on all channels of a multichannel scan list, regardless of the individual channel gain settings. Finally, high-accuracy M Series devices employ an ultrastable 7 V voltage reference that provides extremely low drift to guarantee accurate measurements between external device calibrations. The combination of the 7 V reference and NI-MCal improve the external device calibration interval to a full two years an improvement over the one-year interval standard with other data acquisition devices. The low-cost M Series devices use a different voltage reference for calibration purposes. To demonstrate the impact of using a different reference, Figure 6 shows four different plots with the left plots representing the PCI-6229 and the right plots representing the PCI-6289. The top plots demonstrate the drift of the onboard voltage references over a three-day period in units of ppm. The bottom plots display the corresponding room temperature over the three days. The voltage reference of the PCI-6229 is much more susceptible to a change in room temperature, whereas the PCI-6289 stays consistent around 0 ppm regardless of a change in temperature, thus guaranteeing maximum accuracy. For more information on the NI-MCal calibration technique, refer to the NI-MCal white paper.
Figure 6. The ultrastable voltage reference on the NI 628x devices maximizes device accuracy.
Figure 7. The offset and range features of high-accuracy M Series devices deliver a more accurate representation of the actual signal.
7. Take Advantage of the Worlds Best Multifunction DAQ Absolute Accuracy Specifications
The previous five technologies combine to deliver the absolute accuracy specifications of the high-accuracy M Series device. The term absolute accuracy defines the worst-case error of a
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The previous five technologies combine to deliver the absolute accuracy specifications of the high-accuracy M Series device. The term absolute accuracy defines the worst-case error of a measurement for a given data acquisition device at a specified range, and it provides useful information about the reliability of a measurement in voltage units. Absolute accuracy is a function of temperature, voltage reading, offset, gain, and noise uncertainty. As shown in Figure 8, the high-accuracy M Series devices have a remarkable worst-case absolute accuracy on the analog inputs of 980 V at the 10 V range and 28 V at 100 mV. View the high-accuracy M Series device data sheets and specifications for more information.
Figure 8. High-accuracy M Series absolute accuracy with lowpass filters enabled is 980 V at the 10 V range and 28 V at 100 mV. In the high-tech world that we live in today, making mistakes in data acquisition can be expensive. In some applications, you might only have one chance to acquire all of the required data because of the high cost for each test run. The high-accuracy M Series devices make sure that the data from your data acquisition application will not be compromised. View the detailed specifications of the full line of high-accuracy M Series devices and start taking uncompromisingly accurate measurements. Related Links: Learn more about high-accuracy M Series DAQ. See how the NI-MCal calibration technique increases measurement accuracy. Increase system accuracy with signal conditioning. Watch the interactive M Series tutorial and learn from the engineers.
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