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03 Notes - Signal Conditioning 20181029
03 Notes - Signal Conditioning 20181029
Signal Conditioning:
1. Explain the requirements for signal conditioning.
2. Explain how operational amplifiers can be used.
3. Explain the requirements for protection and filtering.
4. Explain the principles of the Wheatstone bridge and, in particular,
how it is used with strain gauges.
5. Explain the principle of pulse modulation.
6. Explain the problems that can occur with ground loops and
interference and suggest possible solutions to these problems.
7. State the requirements for maximum power transfer between electrical
components.
3.1 Introduction
The output signal from the sensor of a measurement system has generally to be processed in
some way to make it suitable for the next stage of the operation. The signal may be, for example,
too small and have to be amplified, contain interference which has to be removed, be non-
linear and require linearisation, be analogue and have to be made digital, be digital and have
to be made analogue, be a resistance change and have to be made into a current change, be a
voltage change and have to be made into a suitable size current change, etc. All these changes
can be referred to as signal conditioning. For example, the output from a thermocouple is a
small voltage, a few millivolts. A signal conditioning module might then be used to convert this
into a suitable size current signal, provide noise rejection, linearisation and cold junction
compensation (i.e. compensating for the cold junction not being at 0°C).
Some of the processes that can occur in conditioning a signal are outlined below:
Getting the signal into the right type of signal. This can mean making the signal into a
d.c. voltage or current. Thus, for example, the resistance change of a strain gauge has
to be converted into a voltage change. This can be done by the use of a Wheatstone
bridge and using the out-of-balance voltage.
Getting the level of the signal right. The signal from a thermocouple might be just a few
millivolts. If the signal is to be fed into an analogue-to-digital converter for inputting to
a microprocessor then it needs to be made much larger, volts rather than millivolts.
Operational amplifiers are widely used for amplification.
Eliminating or reducing noise. For example, filters might be used to eliminate mains
noise from a signal
Signal manipulation, e.g. making it a linear function of some variable. The signals from
some sensors, e.g. a flowmeter, are non-linear and thus a signal conditioner might be
used so that the signal fed on to the next element is linear.
An amplifier can be considered to be essentially a system which has an input and an output
(Figure 3.1), the voltage gain of the amplifier being the ratio of the output and input voltages
when each is measured relative to the earth. The input impedance of an amplifier is defined as
the input voltage divided by the input current, the output impedance being the output voltage
divided by the output current.
The basis of many signal conditioning modules is the operational amplifier. The operational
amplifier is a high-gain d.c. amplifier, the gain typically being of the order of 100,000 or more,
that is supplied as an integrated circuit on a silicon chip. It has two inputs, known as the
The output depends on the connections made to these inputs. There are other inputs to the
operational amplifier, namely
Figure 3.2 shows the pin connections for a 741-type operational amplifier. An ideal model for
an operational amplifier is as an amplifier with an infinite gain, infinite input impedance
and zero output impedance, i.e. the output voltage is independent of the load.
𝑉𝑖𝑛 = 𝐼1 𝑅1
The operational amplifier has a very high impedance between its input terminals; for a 741
about 2 MΩ. Thus virtually no current flows through X into it. For an ideal operational amplifier
the input impedance is taken to be infinite and so there is no current flow through X. Hence
the current I1 through R1 must be the current through R2. The potential difference across R2 is
(VX – Vout) and thus, since VX is zero for the ideal amplifier, the potential difference across R2 is
-Vout. Thus,
−𝑉𝑜𝑢𝑡 = 𝐼1 𝑅2
Thus the voltage gain of the circuit is determined solely by the relative values of R2 and R1.
The negative sign indicates that the output is inverted, i.e. 180° out of phase, with respect to
the input. To illustrate the above, consider an inverting operational amplifier circuit which has
a resistance of 1 MV in the inverting input line and a feedback resistance of 10 MV. What is
the voltage gain of the circuit?
As an example of the use of the inverting amplifier circuit, photodiodes are widely used sensors
(see Section 2.10) and give small currents on exposure to light. The inverting amplifier circuit
can be used with such a sensor to give a current to voltage converter, the photodiode being
reverse bias connected in place of resistor R1, and so enable the output to be used as input to
a microcontroller.
The voltage follower a particular form of this amplifier that has R2 replaced by a short circuit.
i.e. R2=0. Thus voltage gain is 1 and Vout = Vin
Figure 3.6(b) shows the differentiating amplifier. A differentiation circuit can be produced if the
capacitor and resistor are interchanged in the circuit for the integrating amplifier.
At high frequencies the differentiator circuit is susceptible to stability and noise problems. A
solution is to add an input resistor Rin (shown dotted) to limit the gain at high frequencies and
so reduce the problem.
Figure 3.8 shows how it used with a thermocouple. The difference in voltage between the
e.m.f.s of the two junctions of the thermocouple is being amplified.
If V1=V2, then we define that voltage as Common Mode Voltage VCM. For the amplifier only to
amplify the difference between the two signals, it is assumed that the two input channels are
perfectly matched and the operational amplifier has the same, high gain for both of them.
In practice this is not perfectly achieved and thus the output is not perfectly proportional to
the difference between the two input voltages. Thus we write for the output
Where
Gd is the gain for the voltage difference ΔV,
GCM the gain for the common mode voltage VCM.
The smaller the value of GCM, the smaller the effect of the common mode voltage on the
output. The extent to which an operational amplifier deviates from the ideal situation is
specified by the common mode rejection ratio (CMRR):
To minimize the effect of the common mode voltage on the output, a high CMRR is required.
CMRRs are generally specified in decibels (dB). Thus, on the decibel scale a CMRR of, say,
10,000 would be 20log(10,000) = 80 dB. A typical operational amplifier might have a CMRR
between about 80 and 100 dB.
Thus
2𝑅2
Overall gain = 1 + 𝑅1
Set by varying R1.
A logarithmic amplifier (Figure 3.11) can be used to linearise the output from a sensor such as
a thermocouple, which is not a perfectly linear function of the temperature difference between
its junctions.
3.2.7 Comparator
A comparator indicates which of two voltages is the larger. An operational amplifier used with
no feedback or other components can be used as a comparator.
A transducer for the measurement of angular velocity typically might be quoted as having a
repeatability of ±0.01% of the full range at a particular angular velocity.
Operational amplifiers draw small currents at the input terminals in order to bias the input
transistors. The bias current flowing through the source resistance at each terminal generates
a voltage in series with the input. Ideally, the bias currents at the two inputs will be equal;
however, in practice this will not be the case. Thus the effect of these bias currents is to produce
an output voltage when there is no input signal and the output should be zero. This is
particularly a problem when the amplifier is operating with d.c. voltages.
The average value of the two bias currents is termed the input bias current. For a general-
purpose operational amplifier, a typical value is about 100nA.
The difference between the two bias currents is termed the input-offset current. Ideally this
would be zero, but for a typical general purpose amplifier it is likely to be about 10nA, about
10 to 25% of the input bias current.
An important parameter which affects the use of an operational amplifier with alternating
current applications is the slew rate. This is the maximum rate of change at which the output
voltage can change with time in response to a perfect step-function input. Typical values range
from 0.2 V/μs to over 20 V/μs. With high frequencies, the large-signal operation of an amplifier
is determined by how fast the output can swing from one voltage to another. Thus for use with
high-frequency inputs a high value of slew rate is required.