Chapter 2c:

Digital Instruments
Assoc. Prof. Ir. Dr. Mohd Ridzuan Ahmad
Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
81310 UTM Skudai, Johor
Malaysia

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 Digital Instruments
• Measured quantity is displayed numerically instead of a
deflection.
• Data in digital form facilitates various operations that are
normally required in signal processing.
• Increase of computer facilities and decrease in the cost of
various modules required for digital systems is accelerating the
development of digital instrumentation for measurement and
signal processing.

Analog to
Signal
Digital Display
Processing
Conversion

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 Digital Multimeter
• Analog meters require no power supply,
gives better visual indication of changes
and suffer less from electronic noise and
inexpensive.
• Digital meters offer high accuracy, have a
high input impedance and smaller in size.
• Employ analog to digital converters and a
visible readout display.
• Three major classes of digital meters:
Panel meters, bench type meters and
system meters.

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 Digital Multimeter
• Basic digital multimeter is always a dc voltmeter.
• Current is converted to voltage by passing it through a precision
low shunt resistance while alternating current is converted into dc
by employing rectifier.
• For resistance measurement, the meter includes a precision low
current source that is applied across the unknown resistance and
it produces a dc voltage which is digitised and readout as ohms.

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 Transistor Voltmeter:
Emitter Follower Voltmeter
• Load at voltmeter can be reduced because
it provide high input resistance to the
voltage to be measured and give low
output resistance so that the current flow
through the coil at deflection meter is
increased.
• DC source voltage is connected - positive
terminal connect to emitter and negative
terminal connect to deflection meter.
• Base current is lower than meter current: IB
 Im / hFE (hFE =transistor current gain).
• Hence, the input resistance for the circuit
is:
R  (E / Ib) >> (Rs + Rm)
PMMC
Ri(transistor) Ri(without transistor)
Analog Voltmeter

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 Example
Refer to Figure 1. Given
Vcc=20 V, Rs + Rm=9.3 kΩ,
Im=1 mA (full scale
deflection) and hFE=100
a) Calculate VE when
E=10 V
b) Determine internal
resistance of voltmeter PMMC
Figure 1
Analog Voltmeter
with and without
transistor
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 Example

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 Transistor Voltmeter:
Emitter Follower Voltmeter
Voltage base-emitter (VBE) will produce an error for
emitter follower voltmeter. i.e: When E = 10 V, the full
scale deflection, Im= 1 mA. If E = 5 V, Im= 0.5 mA (half of
the full scale deflection). However, from calculation, Im =
0.46 mA.

This error can be eliminated using voltage divider with

an emitter follower.

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 Practical Emitter Follower Voltmeter
• Bi-polarity (usually 12V).
• Base terminal of transistor Q1 is grounded through resistor R1.
• Voltage divider (R4, R5 and R6) will give variable bias voltage (Vp)
to base terminal of transistor Q2.
• Resistor R2 and R3 are connected from emitter terminal to
negative source voltage (-VEE).
• Meter circuit is connected between emitter terminal of both
transistors Q1 and Q2.

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 Practical Emitter Follower Voltmeter
•Input resistance for the circuit is R1, which is parallel to the input
resistance at base terminal of the transistor.
•E = 0V, voltage at base terminal Q2 is changed to give zero meter
current, Vp = 0V , VE1 = VE2 = -0.7 and (meter circuit voltage) V = 0V.
•Voltage at base Q2 is changed in order to get zero meter current,
Vp = 0V , VE1 = VE2 = -0.7 and (meter circuit voltage) V = 0V.

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 Practical Emitter Follower Voltmeter

At Q1 (E= 5V);

V = VE1 – VE2
= (E – VBE1) – VE2
= (5V – 0.7V) – (-0.7)
= 5V

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 TVM: Example
An emitter follower circuit has R2 = R3 = 3.9kΩ and VCC = 12V.
a) Determine I2 and I3 when E = 0V
b) Calculate voltage for meter circuit when E=1V and E=0.5V

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 Solution
• VR2 = VR3 = 0V – VBE – VEE
= 0V – 0.7V – (-12V) = 11.3V
• I2 = I3 = VR2 / R2 = (11.3V) / (3.9kΩ)  2.9mA

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 Solution
When E = 1V, V = VE1 – VE2
VE1 = E – VBE = 1V – 0.7V = 0.3V
VE2 = VP – VBE = 0V- 0.7V = -0.7V
V = VE1 – VE2 = 0.3V – (-0.7V) = 1V

When E = 0.5V, V = VE1 – VE2

VE1 = E – VBE = 0.5V – 0.7V = -0.2V
VE2 = VP – VBE = 0V- 0.7V = -0.7V
V = VE1 – VE2 = -0.2V – (-0.7V) = 0.9V

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 Current to Voltage Converter
• The measured current is applied to a summing junction (∑i) at
the input of the Op-amp.
• High input impedance at the input of the Op-amp, therefore IR is
the same as Iin.
• The IR causes a voltage drop across the resistors which is
proportional to the current.
• The voltage drop is the input to the A/D converter, thereby
providing a reading that is proportional to the unknown current.

Decade Digital
counter readout

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 Digital to Analogue Conversion
• Digital information (binary number) to analog voltage.
Eg. 8 bit = 1111 1111
• Output ; Vout  VR [b1 2 1  b2 2 2  ......bn 2 n]

–Vout=analog voltage output

–VR= reference voltage
–B1, b2… bn = n-bit binary word
• 4-bit word, with all bits set to one
Vmax  VR [21  22  23  24 ]  0.9375VR

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 Digital to Analogue Conversion

• Or using this formula

N
Vout  n
VR
2

–Where N= base 10 whole-number equivalent

of DAC i/p.
–Eg. 8 bit converter with 5.0 V reference has an
i/p of 101001112.
167
Vout  8
5.0  3.2617 volts
2

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 Example
• What is the o/p voltage of a 10-bit DAC with a
10.0 V reference if the i/p is 00101101012?

• What is the digital i/p needed to get an analogue

5.625 V o/p?

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 Exercise
A 10-bit DAC with a 6V reference is used to convert
digital input in to analog output.

i. What is the output voltage if the input to the DAC

is 00011010102?

ii. What is the digital input to the DAC in order to

get an analog 5.42 V output?
19

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 Conversion Solution
• The smallest possible change;

out  VR 2 n

• Δout=Smallest o/p change

• VR= reference voltage
• n=number of bits in the word

• Eg. 5 bit word D/A converter with a 10V

reference will provide changes of
Δout=(10)(2-5)= 0.3125 V
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 Tutorial
A 4 bit DAC must have an 8 V output when all inputs
are high. Find the required reference.

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 Tutorial

A control valve has a linear variation of opening as the i/p

voltage varies from 0V to 10V. A microcomputer outputs
an 8-bit word to control the valve opening using an 8 bit
DAC to generate the valve voltage.
a. Find the reference voltage required to obtain a full
open valve (10V) (Ans : 10.039V)
b. Find the percentage of valve opening for a 1-bit change
in the i/p word (Ans : 0.392%)

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 Analogue to Digital Conversion
• Converts continuous signals to discrete digital
numbers.
• ADC is an electronic device that converts an
•
input analog voltage to a digital number.
• Digital output may be using different coding
schemes, such as binary and two's complement
binary.
• Analog-to-digital converter (ADC) accepts an
analog input (voltage or current) and converts
it into a digital value that can be read by a
microprocessor.
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 • Reference voltage is a max value
that the ADC can convert.
• Example 8-bit ADC can convert
values from 0V to the reference
voltage.
• This voltage range is divided into 256
values, or steps. The size of the step
is given by:

Vref/256

• The step size of the converter

defines the converter's resolution.
• For a 5V reference, the step size is:
http://www.embedded.com/story/OEG20010418S0038
5V/256 = 0.0195V or 19.5mV

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 Resolution (bit)
• Indicates the number of discrete values it can produce
over the range of voltage values.
• For example, an ADC that encodes an analog input to
one of 256 discrete values (0..255) has a resolution of
eight bits, since

28 = 256 x (2n)

• Resolution can also be defined electrically, : The

voltage resolution of an ADC is equal to its overall
voltage measurement range divided by the number of
discrete values.

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 Example 1

• Full scale measurement range = 0 to 10 volts

• ADC resolution is 12 bits:
212 = 4096 quantization levels
• ADC voltage resolution is:
(10-0)/4096 = 0.00244 volts
= 2.44 mV

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 Example 2

• Full scale measurement range = -10 to +10 V

• ADC resolution is 14 bits:
214 = 16384 quantization levels
• ADC voltage resolution is:
(10-(-10))/16384 = 20/16384
= 0.00122 volts
= 1.22 mV

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 Type of ADC

1. Direct conversion ADC or flash ADC

2. Successive-approximation ADC
3. Delta-encoded ADC
4. Ramp-compare ADC (integrating, dual-slope
or multi-slope ADC)
5. Pipeline ADC (also called subranging
quantizer
6. Sigma-Delta ADC

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 Sampling Rate

• Analog signal is continuous in time.

• Necessary to convert this to a flow of digital
values.
• Therefore required to define the rate at which
new digital values are sampled from the
analog signal.
• The rate of new values is called the sampling
rate or sampling frequency of the converter.

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 Virtual Instrumentation
• Defined as a layer of software and/or hardware which
is added to a digital computer so that the user can use
it the same way like a conventional instrument.
• The standard architecture for such an instrument
consists of:
– Data acquisition, Analysis involving calculations, Presentation
including user interface

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 Virtual Instrumentation
• A new way of doing testing and analysis.
• Using the software, the VI functions just like an actual
instrument.
• VIs are low cost, flexible and ability to customize various
instruments.
• An Example is LabView by National Instruments

• The graphical programming language of LabView make

it easy for the user to build the VI according to the
desire measurement/ function.
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 Virtual Instrumentation
• The Graphical User Interface (GUI) built allow
easy access of the user to the input and output
ports of the data acquisition card or hardware.
• VI will able to measure,
record and present the
measured data.
• Other software available
for VI development are
Matlab and Agilent VEE.

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