• SIGNAL CONDITIONING AND CONVERSION

• A signal conditioning elements convert the output of sensing

elements into a form suitable for further processing. This form
is usually a d.c. voltage, a d.c. current or a variable frequency
a.c. voltage.
• Signal conditioning / processing is concerned with improving
the quality of the reading or signal at the output of a
measurement system, and one particular aim is to attenuate
any noise in the measurement signal that has not been
eliminated by careful design of the measurement system .
However, signal processing performs many other functions
apart from dealing with noise, and the exact procedures that
are applied depend on the nature of the raw output signal from
a measurement transducer. Procedures of signal amplification,
signal attenuation, signal filtering, signal linearization and bias
removal are applied according to the form of correction
required in the raw signal.
• Deflection bridges are used to convert the output of resistive,
capacitive and inductive sensors into a voltage signal.
• Amplifiers are necessary in order to amplify low-level signals,
e.g. thermocouple or strain gauge bridge output voltages, to a
level which enables them to be further processed.
• Oscillators are feedback systems which rely on the dynamic
property of a closed-loop system, consisting of elements with
dynamic characteristics, to sustain continuous oscillations, if
certain conditions are satisfied.
• A filter is an element which transmits a certain range of
frequencies and rejects all other frequencies. An analogue filter
is an electrical network, consisting usually of resistors,
capacitors and operational amplifiers, which conditions
continuous signals. A digital filter is usually a digital computer
programmed to process sampled values of a signal. Provided
that the power spectrum of the measurement signal occupies a
different frequency range from that of the noise or
interference signal, then filtering improves the signal-to-
noise ratio.
• DEFLECTION BRIDGE CIRCUITS
• Bridge circuits are of immense importance in measurement
system technology because so many transducers measuring
physical quantities have an output that is expressed as a
change in resistance, inductance or capacitance. The
displacement-measuring strain gauge, which has a varying
resistance output, is one example of this class of transducers.
• Bridge circuits are used very commonly:
• As null detectors where they provide an accurate method of
measuring resistance, inductance and capacitance values, and
enable the detection of very small changes in these quantities
about a nominal value.
• As a variable conversion element in measurement systems and
produce an output in the form of a voltage level that change as
the measured physical quantity changes.
• Normally, excitation of the bridge is by a d.c. voltage for
resistance measurement and by an a.c. voltage for inductance
or capacitance measurement. Both null and deflection types of
bridge exist and, in a like manner to instruments in general,
null types are mainly employed for calibration purposes and
deflection types are used within closed-loop automatic control
schemes.
• Fig1 below shows a general deflection bridge network. ETh is
the open-circuit output voltage of the bridge, i.e. when current
i in BD = 0. Using Kirchhoff’s laws:

• Fig 1 Calculation of Thevenin equivalent circuit for a

deflection bridge
• Thévenin voltage for general deflection bridge
ZTh is the impedance, looking back into the circuit, between the
output terminals BD, when the supply voltage VS is replaced
by its internal impedance. Assuming the internal impedance of
the supply is zero, then this is equivalent to a short circuit
across AC.
• We see that ZTh is equal to the parallel combination of Z2 and
Z3 in series with the parallel combination of Z1 and Z4, i.e.
• Thévenin impedance for general deflection bridge
• If a load, e.g. a voltmeter or amplifier, of impedance ZL is
connected across the output terminals BD, then the current
through the load is i = ETh /(ZTh + ZL). The corresponding
voltage across the load is VL = ETh ZL /(ZTh + ZL). Thus in the
limit that |ZL|>>|ZTh|, VL → ETh.
• DESIGN OF RESISTIVE DEFLECTION BRIDGES
In a resistive or Wheatstone bridge all four impedances Z1 to
Z4 are pure resistances R1 to R4. From the equation of
Thévenin voltage for general deflection bridge we have:

• We first consider the case when only one of the resistances is a

sensing element. Here R1 depends on the input measured
variable I, i.e. R1 = RI, and R2, R3 and R4 are fixed resistors.
This gives
• From which we see that to design a single element bridge we
need to specify the three parameters VS, R4 and R3 /R2. The
individual values of R2 and R3 are not critical; it is their ratio
which is crucial to the design. The three parameters can be
specified by considering the range and linearity of the output
voltage and electrical power limitations for the sensor. Thus if
IMIN and IMAX are minimum and maximum values of the
measured variable, and RIMIN and RIMAX are the corresponding
sensor resistances, then in order for the bridge output voltage
to have a range from VMIN to VMAX the following conditions
must be obeyed:

• Often we require VMIN = 0, i.e. the bridge to be balanced when

I = IMIN; in this case the equation for VMIN reduces to:
• Relationship between resistances in a balanced Wheatstone
bridge
• A third condition is required to complete the design. One
important consideration is the need to limit the electrical
power (i2)2 RI ) in the sensor to a level which enables it to be
dissipated as heat flow to the surrounding fluid; otherwise the
temperature of the sensor rises above that of the surrounding
fluid, thereby affecting the sensor resistance. Thus if watts is
the maximum power dissipation, using the equation
i 2 = VS/Z1+Z4 we require:

• For the case IMIN ≤ I ≤ IMAX

• A.C. BRIDGES
• As always in bridge measurement circuits, the unknown
quantity is “balanced” against a known standard, obtained
from a high-quality, calibrated component that can be adjusted
in value until the null detector device indicates a condition of
balance. Depending on how the bridge is set up, the unknown
component's value may be determined directly from the setting
of the calibrated standard, or derived from that standard
through a mathematical formula.
• Simple “symmetrical” bridges such as these are so named
because they exhibit symmetry from left to right. The two
bridge circuits shown above are balanced by adjusting the
calibrated reactive component. They are a bit simplified from
their real-life counterparts, as practical symmetrical bridge
circuits often have a calibrated, variable resistor in series or
parallel with the reactive component to balance out stray
resistance in the unknown component. these simple bridge
circuits do just fine to illustrate the basic concept.
• A couple of simple bridge circuits are shown below, one for
inductance and one for capacitance:

• Symmetrical bridge measures unknown inductor by

comparison to a standard inductor.

• Symmetrical bridge measures unknown capacitor by

comparison to a standard capacitor.
• An example of a little extra complexity added to compensate
for real-world effects can be found in the so-called Wien
Bridge, which uses a parallel capacitor-resistor standard
impedance to balance out an unknown series capacitor-resistor
combination (Fig below). All capacitors have some amount of
internal resistance, be it literal or equivalent which tend to
spoil their otherwise perfectly reactive natures. This internal
resistance may be of interest to measure, and so the Wien
Bridge attempts to do so by providing balancing impedance
that isn't “pure” either:

• Wein Bridge measures both capacitive Cx and resistive Rx

components of “real” capacitor.
• Being that there are two standard components to be adjusted (a
resistor and a capacitor) this bridge will take a little more time
to balance than the others we've seen so far. The combined
effect of Rs and Cs is to alter the magnitude and phase angle
until the bridge achieves a condition of balance. Once that
balance is achieved, the settings of Rs and Cs can be read from
their calibrated knobs, the parallel impedance of the two
determined mathematically, and the unknown capacitance and
resistance determined mathematically from the balance
equation (Z1/Z2 = Z3/Z4).
• It is assumed in the operation of the Wien Bridge that the
standard capacitor has negligible internal resistance, or at least
that resistance is already known so that it can be factored into
the balance equation. Wien bridges are useful for determining
the values of “lossy” capacitor designs like electrolytic, where
the internal resistance is relatively high. They are also used as
frequency meters, because the balance of the bridge is
frequency-dependent. When used in this fashion, the
capacitors are made fixed (and usually of equal value) and the
top two resistors are made variable and are adjusted by means
of the same knob.
• DESIGN OF REACTIVE DEFLECTION BRIDGES
• A reactive bridge has an a.c. supply voltage; two arms are
usually reactive impedances and two arms resistive
impedances. Fig 2(a) shows the bridge to be used with the
capacitance level transducer and here we have:

• Fig 3.2 (a) Bridge for capacitive level sensor (b) Bridge for
inductive push-pull displacement sensor.
• This gives:

• Thus in order to get ETh = 0 at minimum level hMIN, we require

C0 = ChMIN(R3 /R2), giving:

• Again if R3 /R2 is made large compared with 1, this

approximates to the linear form:

• The most common two-element reactive bridges incorporate

either capacitive or inductive push-pull displacement sensors.
The capacitive sensor has C1 = ε ε 0A/(d + x) and C2 = ε ε
0A/(d − x); if this is connected into an a.c. bridge so that Z1 =
l/( jωC1), Z2 = Z3 = R, Z4 = 1/( jωC2) we have:
• This gives:

• i.e. the relationship between ETh and x is linear and

independent of frequency ω. We note that the alternative way
of connecting the sensor into the bridge so that Z1 = l/( jωC1)
and Z2 = 1/( jωC2) gives an output voltage which is non-
linearly related to x and dependent on the supply frequency ω.
A similar result is obtained with the variable reluctance push-
pull displacement sensor. This has:

• and from Fig 2(b) we have Z1 = jωL1, Z2 = Z3 = R, Z4 = jωL2,

giving:
• From which:

• Again the relationship between ETh and x is linear and

frequency independent.