PC-BASED MEASUREMENT INSTRUMENTS: CHARACTERISATION

S. Caldara, S. Nuccio, C. Spataro

Abstract

In this paper the problem of characterisation, in terms of uncertainty, of the measurement digital instruments performances, based on the typical architecture of PC bus plugged data acquisition boards is considered. According to the GUM the measuring model and the various sources of uncertainty have been taken into account and the law of uncertainty propagation has been applied. Then theoretical and numerical analyses of combined uncertainties are carried out obtaining formulas for the estimation of the standard uncertainty of the measurement result of various hardware and software blocks of the measurement chain. The results of numerical simulations and experimental tests are presented to validate the proposed method. In particular a virtual instrument, with a complex measurement chain, for flicker evaluation has been considered. The so obtained results are in a very good agreement with the theoretical and numerical ones.

Keywords

PC-based instrument, virtual instruments, uncertainty estimation

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IMEKO-WC-2000-UNC-P498.pdf

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