Analog vs.

Digital Instruments
4.1 Introduction
Working with absolute instruments for routine work is time consuming since every
time a measurement is made, it takes a lot of time to compute the magnitude of the
quantity under measurement. It is the secondary instruments which are most
generally used in everyday work, the use of the absolute instruments being merely
confined within laboratories as standardizing instruments. Secondary instruments
work in two modes, the Analog mode and the Digital mode.
4.2 Analog or Analogue Signal
Analog signals are those which vary in a continuous fashion and take on infinity of
values in any given range. The devices which produce these signals are called analog
devices. Analog is usually thought of in an electrical context; however, mechanical,
pneumatic, hydraulic, and other systems may also convey analog signals. An analog
signal uses some property of the medium to convey the signal's information. For
example, an aneroid barometer uses rotary position as the signal to convey pressure
information. Electrically, the property most commonly used is voltage followed
closely by frequency, current, and charge. The devices that produce such signals are
called analog devices.
Any information may be conveyed by an analog signal. Often such a signal is a
measured response to changes in physical phenomena, such as temperature,
pressure, sound or position and is achieved using a transducer. An analog signal is
one where at each point in time the value of the signal is significant. For example,
in sound recording, fluctuations in air pressure (that is to say, sound) strike the
diaphragm of a microphone which induces corresponding fluctuations in the current
produced by a coil in an electromagnetic microphone, or the voltage produced by a
condenser microphone.
4.3 Digital Signal
In contrast the analog signals which vary in a continuous fashion and take on infinity
of values in any given range, the digital signals vary in discrete steps and thus take
up only finite different values in a given range. The devices that produce such signals
are called digital devices.
Analog and Digital signals are presented in Fig. 1 (a) and (b). In an analog system,
the function varies continuously. On the other hand, the digital values are discrete
and vary in equal steps. The figure below illustrates how both an analog voltage and
a digital voltage vary with time.
 Fig. 1 Analog and digital signal

4.4 Analog Versus Digital Modes

An analog signal is one where at each point in time the value of the signal is
significant, where as a digital signal is one where at each point in time, the value of
the signal must be above or below some discrete threshold. The display of the
quantity to be measured in analog instruments is in terms of deflection of a pointer,
where as digital instruments indicate the value to be measured in terms of decimal
number. The main advantage of the analog signal is its fine definition which has the
potential for an infinite amount of signal resolution. Compared to digital signals,
analog signals are of higher density.
Another advantage with analog signals is that their processing may be achieved more
simply than with the digital equivalent. An analog signal may be processed directly
by analog components, though some processes aren't available except in digital
form. The analog instruments are less costly and simple in design as compared to
their digital counter parts.
The primary disadvantage of analog signaling is that any system may have noise,
that is, random unwanted variation. As the signal is copied and re-copied, or
transmitted over long distances, these apparently random variations become
dominant. Electrically, these losses can be diminished by shielding, good
connections, and several cable types such as coaxial or twisted pair. The effects of
noise create signal loss and distortion. This is impossible to recover, since
amplifying the signal to recover attenuated parts of the signal amplifies the noise
(distortion/interference) as well. Even if the resolution of an analog signal is higher
than a comparable digital signal, the difference can be overshadowed by the noise in
the signal.
The digital devices have high speed and they also eliminate the human error. With
increasing use of digital computers for data handling and automatic process control,
the importance of digital instrumentation is increasing. It has become necessary to
have both analog to digital converter at input to the computers and digital to analog
converters at the output of the computers.
In order to convert an analog quantity into a digital number, the vertical
displacements in Fig. 2 are divided into equal parts. If we divide the vertical
quantities into 10 equal parts with each part having a length of 1 unit. While dealing
with digital numbers, a quantity between 0 to 0.5 are considered as 0, while a
quantity between 0.5 to 1.5 is 1 and similarly a quantity between 1.5 to 2.5 is 2. It is
apparent that if we adopt digital system, the errors will be involved. But if we further
divide each of the steps into 2 equal parts, we get 20 steps instead of 10. And if these
20 steps are further divided into 2 parts each, we will have 40 steps. By doing this
we can get much better accuracy in converting analogue quantities into digital
numbers. We can go on subdividing each step further and further, till the desired
accuracy is achieved. However, it should be remembered that a digital number is
still a sum of equal units. And in a digital system, magnitudes lying within one of
these steps lose their identity and are all defined by the same number. For example,
if we have ten steps, all the numbers lying between 2.5 to 3.5, that is, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8,
2.9, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, would all be read as 3.

Fig. 2 Analog to digital conversion of signal

From the above discussion we concluded that the difference between analogue and
digital information is that the analogue output is a continuous function while the
digital output is a discrete number of units. The last digit of any digital number is
rounded to 0.5 of the last digit. It should also be marked that the magnitude of the
digital quantity is measured only at the instant the reading is taken. One reading
persists till another reading is taken (unlike the analogue quantity which is a
continuous function).
4.5 Analog Measuring Device
An analog device is one in which the output or display is a continuous function of
time and bears a constant relation to its input. The analog instruments find extensive
use in present day applications although digital instruments are increasing in number
and applications. The areas of application which are common to both analog and
digital instruments are fairly limited at present. Hence, it can safely be predicted that
the analog instruments will remain in extensive use for a number of years and are
not likely to be completely replaced by digital instruments for certain applications.
4.5.1 Classification of analog instruments
Broadly, the analog instruments (and for that matter digital instruments) may be
classified according to the quantity they measure. For example, an instrument meant
for measurement of current is classified as an Ammeter while an instrument that
measures voltage is classified as a Voltmeter. Thus we have wattmeters, power
factor meters, frequency meters, etc. Electrical instruments may also be categorized
as per the kind of current that can be measured by them, such as, direct current (d.c.),
alternating current (a.c.), and direct and alternating current (d.c. / a.c.). As discussed
earlier, there are three categories of instruments; on the same pattern analog
instruments could also be classified as indicating, recording, integrating type.
Indicating instruments are those instruments which indicate the magnitude of a
quantity being measured. They generally make use of a dial and a pointer for this
purpose. Ordinary voltmeters, ammeters and wattmeters belong to this category. The
analog indicating instruments may be further divided into two groups,
the electromechanical instruments, and the electronic instruments. Electronic
instruments are constructed by addition of electronic circuits to electromagnetic
indicators in order to increase the sensitivity and input impedance.
Recording instruments give a continuous record of the quantity being measured over
a specified period. The variations of the quantity being measured are recorded by a
pen (attached to the moving system of the instrument; the moving system is operated
by the quantity being measured) on a sheet of paper carried by a rotating drum. For
example, we may have a recording voltmeter in a sub-station which keeps record of
the variations of supply voltage during the day.
Integrating instruments totalise events over a specified period of time. The
summation, which they give, is the product of time and an electrical quantity.
Ampere hour and watt hour (energy) meters are examples of this category. The
integration (summation value) is generally given by a register consisting of a set of
pointers and dials.
On the basis of method used for comparing the unknown quantity (measured) with
the unit of measurement the analog instruments may also be grouped into two
categories of instruments:
i) Direct Measuring Instruments: These instruments convert the energy of the
measurand directly into energy that actuates the instruments and the value of the
unknown quantity is measured or displayed or recorded directly. The examples
of this class of instruments are ammeters, voltmeters, wattmeters and energy
meters.
ii) Comparison Instruments: These instruments measure the unknown quantity
by comparison with a standard. The examples of comparison type instruments
are d.c. and a.c. bridges.
Direct measuring instruments are the most commonly used in engineering practice
because they are the most simple and inexpensive. Also their use makes the
measurement possible in the shortest time.
4.6 Digital Measuring Device
A digital measuring device is that in which the value of the measured physical
quantity is automatically represented by a number on a digital display or by a code,
that is, a set of discrete signals. Digital measuring devices can be divided into digital
measuring instruments and digital measuring transducers. Digital measuring
instruments are self-contained devices that automatically present the value of the
measured quantity on a digital display. Digital measuring transducers lack a digital
display; and the measurement results are converted into a digital code for subsequent
transmission and processing in measuring systems. The most common types of
digital measuring devices are those used to measure electrical quantities, such as
current, voltage, and frequency. These devices may be used to measure nonelectrical
quantities such as pressure, temperature, speed, and force if the nonelectrical
quantity is first converted into an electrical quantity. For example there are digital
multimeters, digital thermometers, digital flow meters etc.
The operation of digital measuring devices is based on the digitization, that is,
quantization with respect to level and coding of the value of the measured physical
quantity. The coded signal is fed either to a digital display or to a data transmission
and processing system. In a digital display the coded measurement result is
converted into a number expressed by numerals, usually in the decimal number
system. The most widely used digital displays give two to nine digits. Digital
measuring instruments may use electric, cathode-ray, gas-discharge, or liquid-
crystal displays.
4.7 Analogue to Digital (A/D) Conversion
The majority of present day instruments are analogue type. The importance of digital
instruments is increasing, mainly because of the increasing use of digital computers
in both data reduction and automatic control systems. Since digital computer works
only with digital signals, any information supplied to it must be in digital form. The
computers output is also in digital form. Thus working with a digital computer at
either the input or the output, we must use digital signals.
However, most of our present day measurement and control apparatus produces
signals which are of analogue nature, it is thus necessary to have both Analogue to
Digital (A/D) Converters at the input to the computer and Digital to Analogue (D/A)
Converters at the output of the computer.An analog-to-digital converter is a device
that converts a continuous quantity to a discrete time digital representation. The
reverse operation is performed by a digital-to-analog converter. Typically, an A/D
is an electronic device that converts an input analog voltage or current to a digital
number proportional to the magnitude of the voltage or current. However, some non-
electronic or only partially electronic devices, such as rotary encoders, can also be
considered ADCs. The digital output may use different coding schemes. Typically,
the digital output will be a binary number that is proportional to the input, but there
are other possibilities.
An analog to digital converter (Fig. 3) inputs an analog electrical signal such as
voltage or current and outputs a binary number. In block diagram form, it can be
represented as below:

Fig. 3 Analog to digital converter

A digital to analog converter (Fig.4) on the other hand, inputs a binary number and outputs an analog
voltage or current signal. In block diagram form, it looks like this:

Fig. 4 Digital to analog converter