MCT-335: Instrumentation and Measurements

Lecture #4

Lecture Notes by

Dr. Ayisha Nayyar

Assistant professor
MCE, UET, LHR.
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 Revision
Second-Order Instruments

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 Revision
Second-Order Instruments

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 ERRORS
The factors affecting the accuracy, precision and resolution of the system are termed as errors.

I. Noise
II. Calibration errors
III. System’s dynamic response
IV. Non-linearity

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 Noise from electronics

Equivalent quantization noise 5

Types of noise in the measurement data

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 Errors in the measurement data
i. Gross Errors

Gross errors, or "outliers", are errors other than

random errors or systematic errors. They are often
large and, by definition, unpredictable. They are
typically caused by sudden changes in the
prevailing physical circumstances, by system faults
or by operator errors.

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Gross Errors

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 How to reduce Gross Errors
By increasing the number of experimenters, we can
reduce the gross errors. If each experimenter takes
different readings at different points, then by taking
the average of more readings, we can reduce the
gross errors.

Customizing and automating a series of actions

and events that occur in the lab and creating
automated workflows can reduce human errors
considerably. In addition processes automation also
helps reduce human errors that occur when
processes are done manually.
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 ii Systematic Error

Systematic Errors: errors in the output readings of a measurement system that are
consistently on one side of the correct reading, i.e. either all the errors are positive or
they are all negative.

Major sources
Disturbance during measurement processes
Environmental changes

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 Sources of Systematic Error
System disturbance due to measurement
Disturbance of the measured system by the act of measurement is a common
source of systematic error.

Example 1: Measuring temperature of hot water through a thermometer

initially at room temperature.

Example 2: Flow measurement using orifice plate causes permanent loss in

pressure

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 Sources of Systematic Error

Errors due to environmental inputs:

An environmental input is defined as an apparently real input to a measurement
system that is actually caused by a change in the environmental conditions
surrounding the measurement system
Away from the specified calibration conditions, the characteristics of measuring
instruments vary to some extent and cause measurement errors.

• Example: We are given a box that weighs 0.1kg when empty, and are told that it might contain some candies.
• We put the box on the weighing scale that gives the reading of 1kg.
• This output may be coming from one of the following reasons:
• 0.9kg candies in the box (Real input)
• The box is empty and 0.9kg bias is present in the scale (Environmental input)
• 0.4kg candies and 0.5kg bias in the scale (Real + Environmental input)

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 “ERROR STATISTICS”
Error in the nth measurement is defined as:

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“ERROR STATISTICS”

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“ERROR STATISTICS”

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“ERROR STATISTICS”

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 “ERROR STATISTICS”
Limiting Error

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 LE for resistor value by Wheatstone bridge

• Let QUM be the function of N variables:

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LE for resistor value by Wheatstone bridge

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 LE for resistor value by Wheatstone bridge

Example 1: Example 2:
LE in the calculation of Nernst Potential of a Potassium ion:

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Reducing systematic errors

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 How to reduce Systematic Errors

 Careful instrument design

 Method of opposing inputs

• Components that exhibit

opposite behaviors to
changes in environmental
conditions are used to cancel
out the overall effect.
• Example: Milli-voltmeter

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 How to reduce Systematic Errors
 High-gain feedback

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 How to reduce Systematic Errors
Calibration
Manual correction of output reading
Intelligent instruments

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Random errors

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 Random Errors

• Fluctuations due to unpredictable variations in the measurement system

• Repeating the measurement procedure and averaging out the results is one
common way of reducing random errors (Other statistical methods are also
employed for better results)
• Intelligent instruments do this automatically!!!

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 Random Errors

• Statistical analysis of measurements subject to random errors

• Mean and Median Values
• Mean = Average of all reading
• Median = Middle reading if all reading are arranged in ascending order
• Example: The length of a steel bar is measured by a number of different
observers
• Reading A: 398 420 394 416 404 408 400 420 396 413 430
• Mean = 409, Median = 408
• Reading B: 409 406 402 407 405 404 407 404 407 407 408
• Mean = 406, Median = 407

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Random Errors

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Random Errors

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Random Errors

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 Random Errors

What if you increase the number of observations/reading to

infinite?
You won’t be needing bins for a range of values, instead each
value will have some frequency associated with it.
Now this histogram will become a continuous histogram or
more technically Frequency Distribution Curve.

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Random Errors

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Random Errors

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Random Errors

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