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Data acquisition
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Main page Data acquisition is the process of sampling signals that measure real world physical conditions and converting the
Contents resulting samples into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer. Data acquisition systems,
Featured content abbreviated by the acronyms DAS or DAQ, typically convert analog waveforms into digital values for processing. The
Current events components of data acquisition systems include:
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Donate to Wikipedia Sensors, to convert physical parameters to electrical signals.
Wikipedia store Signal conditioning circuitry, to convert sensor signals into a form that can be converted to digital values.
Analog-to-digital converters, to convert conditioned sensor signals to digital values.
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Help Data acquisition applications are usually controlled
About Wikipedia by software programs developed using various
Community portal general purpose programming languages such as
Recent changes Assembly, BASIC, C, C++, C#, Fortran, Java,
Contact page LabVIEW, Lisp, Pascal, etc. Stand-alone data
Tools acquisition systems are often called data loggers.
What links here There are also open-source software packages
Related changes providing all the necessary tools to acquire data
Upload file from different hardware equipment. These tools
Special pages come from the scientific community where complex
Permanent link
experiment requires fast, flexible and adaptable Digital Data Acquisition System Block Diagram
Page information
Wikidata item software. Those packages are usually custom fit but
Cite this page more general DAQ package like the Maximum
Integrated Data Acquisition System can be easily tailored and is used in several physics experiments worldwide.
Print/export
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Download as PDF 1 History
Printable version 2 Methodology
2.1 Sources and systems
In other projects
2.2 DAQ hardware
Wikimedia Commons
2.3 DAQ device drivers
Languages 2.4 Input devices
2.5 Hardware
Catal
Deutsch 2.6 DAQ software
Espaol 3 References
Franais 4 Further reading
Italiano 5 See also
Nederlands 6 External links
Polski
Portugus
History [edit]

Trke In 1963, IBM produced computers which specialized in data acquisition. These include the IBM 7700 Data Acquisition
System, and its successor, the IBM 1800 Data Acquisition and Control System. These expensive specialized systems
Edit links were surpassed in 1974 by general purpose S-100 computers and data acquisitions cards produced by
Tecmar/Scientific Solutions Inc. In 1981 IBM introduced the IBM Personal Computer and Scientific Solutions introduced
the first PC data acquisition products.
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Methodology [edit]

Sources and systems [edit]

Data acquisition begins with the physical phenomenon or physical property to be measured. Examples of this include
temperature, light intensity, gas pressure, fluid flow, and force. Regardless of the type of physical property to be

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measured, the physical state that is to be measured must first be transformed into a unified form that can be sampled
by a data acquisition system. The task of performing such transformations falls on devices called sensors. A data
acquisition system is a collection of software and hardware that lets you measure or control physical characteristics of
something in the real world. A complete data acquisition system consists of DAQ hardware, sensors and actuators,
signal conditioning hardware, and a computer running DAQ software.
A sensor, which is a type of transducer, is a device that converts a physical property into a corresponding electrical
signal (e.g., strain gauge, thermistor). An acquisition system to measure different properties depends on the sensors
that are suited to detect those properties. Signal conditioning may be necessary if the signal from the transducer is not
suitable for the DAQ hardware being used. The signal may need to be filtered or amplified in most cases. Various other
examples of signal conditioning might be bridge completion, providing current or voltage excitation to the sensor,
isolation, linearization. For transmission purposes, single ended analog signals, which are more susceptible to noise
can be converted to differential signals. Once digitized, the signal can be encoded to reduce and correct transmission
errors.

DAQ hardware [edit]

DAQ hardware is what usually interfaces between the signal and a PC.[6] It could be in the form of modules that can be
connected to the computer's ports (parallel, serial, USB, etc.) or cards connected to slots (S-100 bus, AppleBus, ISA,
MCA, PCI, PCI-E, etc.) in the motherboard. Usually the space on the back of a PCI card is too small for all the
connections needed, so an external breakout box is required. The cable between this box and the PC can be
expensive due to the many wires, and the required shielding.
DAQ cards often contain multiple components (multiplexer, ADC, DAC, TTL-IO, high speed timers, RAM). These are
accessible via a bus by a microcontroller, which can run small programs. A controller is more flexible than a hard wired
logic, yet cheaper than a CPU so that it is permissible to block it with simple polling loops. For example: Waiting for a
trigger, starting the ADC, looking up the time, waiting for the ADC to finish, move value to RAM, switch multiplexer, get
TTL input, let DAC proceed with voltage ramp.

DAQ device drivers [edit]

DAQ device drivers are needed in order for the DAQ hardware to work with a PC. The device driver performs low-level
register writes and reads on the hardware, while exposing API for developing user applications in a variety of
programming environments.

Input devices [edit]

3D scanner
Analog-to-digital converter
Time-to-digital converter

Hardware [edit]
Computer Automated Measurement and Control (CAMAC)
Industrial Ethernet
Industrial USB
LAN eXtensions for Instrumentation
NIM
PowerLab
PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation
VMEbus
VXI

DAQ software [edit]

Specialized DAQ software may be delivered with the DAQ hardware. Software tools used for building large-scale data
acquisition systems include EPICS. Other programming environments that are used to build DAQ applications include
ladder logic, Visual C++, Visual Basic, LabVIEW, and MATLAB. See also:
LabChart
MIDAS

References [edit]
1. ^ COMDEX Fall November 18, 1981 Las Vegas, NV, "Tecmar shows 20 IBM PC option card.. LabMaster, LabTender,
DADIO, DeviceTender, IEEE-488.."

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 2. ^ PC Magazine Vol1 No.1, "Taking the Measure" by David Bunnell, "Tecmar deployed 20 option cards for the IBM PC"
3. ^ PC Magazine Vol1 No.5, "Tecmar Triumph" by David Bunnell, Scientific Solutions releases 20 new products for the PC
4. ^ BYTE Vol7 No.1 "Scientific Solutions Advertisement for data acquisition boards, stepper controllers, IEEE-488
products
5. ^ Test&Measurement World Vol 11 No 10 Decade of Progress Award: Scientific Solutions LabMaster First in PC Data
Acquisition
6. ^ Data logger, Recorder, Data Acquisition Background information Byte Paradigm explains the differences between
data logging and data acquisition.

Further reading [edit]

Simon McBeath (2002). Competition Car Data Logging: A Practical Handbook. J. H. Haynes & Co. ISBN 1-85960-
653-9.
Simon S. Young (2001). Computerized Data Acquisition and Analysis for the Life Sciences. Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 0-521-56570-7.
W. R. Leo (1994). Techniques for Nuclear and Particle Physics Experiments. Springer. ISBN 3-540-57280-5.
Charles D. Spencer (1990). Digital Design for Computer Data Acquisition. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-
37199-6.
B.G. Thompson & A. F. Kuckes (1989). IBM-PC in the laboratory. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-32199-
9.
Buddy Fey (1996). Data Power: Using Racecar Data Acquisition. Towery Pub. ISBN 1-881096-01-7.
Francesco Fornetti (2013). Instrumentation Control, Data Acquisition and Processing with MATLAB. Explore RF Ltd.
ISBN 978-0957663503.
Toma Kos, Toma Kosar, and Marjan Mernik. Development of data acquisition systems by using a domain-specific
modeling language. Computers in Industry, 63(3):181192, 2012. [1] doi:10.1016/j.compind.2011.09.004

See also [edit]

Black box
Data logger
Data storage device
Sensor
Signal processing
Transducer

External links [edit]

Visual DAQ - An Analytics Platform (Software) for Connecting DAQ Wikimedia Commons has
Systems media related to Data
acquisition.
DAS DATA - Cloud Platform (Software) for Connecting Internet of Things

Categories: Data Signal processing

This page was last modified on 9 December 2016, at 05:52.

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