Lecture 3

EE305 Instrumentation and Measurement

Teaching Assistant Šejla Džakmić
Chapter 3
Measurement Uncertainty - Errors
 The deviation of the readings from the
expected values (true value)
 Impossible to avoid
 We can minimize their magnitude by
good measurement system
 Arise during the measurement process
or
 Due to later corruption of measurement
signal (noise)
 In order to detect error type, examine
error source carefully
 Apply appropriate treatment
Chapter 3
Measurement Uncertainty - Errors
 Systematic Error- due to some known causes
 Consistently on one side of the correct reading (either all positive or all
negative)
 i.e. Sensitivity drift
 Two major causes: disturbance during the measurement and effect of
environmental changes
 Can be also caused by bent meter needles, using uncalibrated instruments,
drift in instrument characteristics, poor cabling practices, etc.
 Random Error (precision error) – perturbations of the
measurement either side of true value, caused by random and
unpredictable effects
 Often arise when measurements are taken by human observation of analog
meter, incorrect adjustments, and computational mistakes
Chapter 3
Sources of Systematic Error
 Environmental disturbances, often called modifying inputs
 Disturbance of the measured system by the act of measurement
 Changes in characteristics due to wear in instrument components over time
 Resistance of connecting leads
System Disturbance due to Measurement
 i.e. Measuring the temperature of hot water by
plunging the termometer into the water
 Relatively cold mass is plunged into the water
 Heat transfer
 Reducing the temperature of water
 Reduction in temperature is very small, sometimes
even undetectable, but the process is disturbed
Errors due to other causes
 Due to Environmental Inputs: static and dynamic characteristics are
specified for particular environmental conditions
Example:

 These conditions should be reroduced as closely as possible during claibration,

otherwise measurement errors can be caused (sensitivity and zero drift)
 Difficult to avoid environmental inputs, imossible to control surrounding
conditions, but possible to reduce the effects
 Due to Wear in Instruments Components: solution is recalibration
Reduction of Systematic Errors

 Prerequisite for reduction is a complete analysis of measurement system and

all sources of error
 Careful instrument design (by reducing the sensitivity of insturment to
environmental inputs)
 Calibration – calibration error grows steadily with the drift in instrument
characteristics until the next calibration
 Method of Opposing inputs
 High – Gain Feedback
 Signal Filtering
 Manual Correction of Output Reading
 Intelligent Instruments
Calculation of Overall Systematic Error
 Composed by several components: measurement system loading,
environmental factors, calibration errors
 Root-sum-squares method
𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟 = ± 𝑥12 + 𝑥22 + 𝑥32 + ⋯ + 𝑥𝑛2
Random Errors Calculations
 Caused by unpredictable variations in the measurement system
 Also called precision errors
 Caused by: human obervation of analog meter, interpolation between scale points,
electrical noise, random enviromnetal changes
 Can be reduced (but not eliminated) by calculating the average of a number of
repeated measurements
 Mean Value:
x1  x 2  x 3    x n n xi
x 
 Median Value: n i 1 n

𝒙𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒂𝒏 = 𝒙𝒏+𝟏/𝟐

 The median value for even number of measurements is midway between the two
center values
 Do example!
Example
Random Errors Calculations

Deviation from the mean:

d n  xn  x


 Standard Deviationw data is distributed about mean value):


d 12  d 22  d 32  ...  d n2

 i
d 2

n n
 Variance (mean square deviation):
𝒅𝟐𝟏 + 𝒅𝟐𝟐 + ⋯ + 𝒅𝟐𝒏
𝑽𝒔 =
𝒏
 Average Deviation (indicate insturments precision):

d1  d 2  d3  ...  d n  d
D 
n n