SIGNAL CONDITIONING

CIRCUITS
SIGNAL CONDITIONING
• The measurand, which is basically a physical quantity as is detected
by the first stage of the instrumentation or measurement system.
• The first stage, with which we have become familiar, is the "Detector
Transducer stage".
• The quantity is detected and is transduced into an electrical form in
most of the cases.
• The output of the first stage has to be modified before it becomes
usable and satisfactory to drive the signal presentation stage which is
the third and the last stage of a measurement system.
• The last stage of the measurement system may consist of indicating,
recording, displaying, data processing elements or may consist of
control elements.
• Methods used for modifying the transduced signal into a usable format for
the final stage of the measurement system are described.

• Measurement of dynamic physical quantities requires faithful

representation of their analog or digital output obtained from the
intermediate stage i.e., signal conditioning stage and this places a severe
strain on the signal conditioning equipment.
• The signal conditioning equipment may be required to do linear processes
like amplification, attenuation integration, differentiation, addition and
subtraction.
• They are also required to do non-linear processes like modulation,
demodulation, sampling, filtering, clipping and clamping, squaring,
linearizing or
• The signal conditioning or data acquisition equipment in many a situation
is an excitation and amplification system for passive transducers.
• It may be an amplification system for active transducers. In both the
applications, the transducer output is brought up to a sufficient level to
make it useful for conversion, processing indicating and recording.
• Excitation is needed for passive transducers because these transducers do
not generate their own voltage or current. Therefore, passive transducers
like strain gauges, potentiometers, resistance thermometers, inductive and
capacitive transducers require excitation from external sources.
• The active transducers like technogenerators, thermocouples, inductive
pick-ups and piezo-electric crystals, on the other hand, do not require an
external source of excitation since they produce their own electrical output
on account of application of physical quantities.
• But these signals usually have a low voltage level, and hence, need
amplification.
Necessity of Signal Conditioning
• The signal may be too small and may not be sufficient to produce a
reading.
• The signal may contain noise due to nearby interference.
• The signal may be nonlinear in nature and may require linearization.
• The signal may require A/D conversion or vice-versa.
• The signal may require any further processing to make it suitable for
acquisition, measurement, transmission and display.
Functions of a signal conditioner
• Signal Conversion
• The main function of a signal conditioner is to pick up the signal and
convert it into a higher level of electrical signal.
• Signal conversion is often used by industrial applications that use a
wide range of sensors to perform measurements.
• Due to the different sensors being employed, the signals generated
may need to be converted to be usable for the instruments they are
connected too. Any sensor signal is capable of being converted to any
standard process signal.
• Linearization
• Certain signal conditioners can perform linearization when the signals
produced by a sensor do not have a straight-line relationship with the
physical measurement.
• This is the process of interpreting the signal from the software and it
is common for thermocouple signals. T
• his method is used to reach higher accuracy because every sensor is
not completely linear. The parameters for the linearization are
evaluated during the sensor-calibration and mentioned in the
calibration protocol of the sensor.
• Amplifying
• The next step is signal amplification and the process of increasing the signal
for processing or digitization.
• There are two ways that signal amplification can be performed; by
increasing the resolution of the input signal, or by increasing the signal-to-
noise ratio.
• Signal conditioning uses a range of different amplifiers for different
purposes, including instrumentation amplifiers, which are optimised for
use with DC signals, and are characterized by high input impedance, high
common mode rejection ratio (CMRR), and high gain.
• Another example of a signal conditioner used for amplification would be an
isolation amplifier, which is designed to isolate high DC levels from the
device while passing small AC or differential signal.
• Filtering
• Another important function of a signal conditioner is filtering, and this is where
the signal frequency spectrum is filtered to only include the valid data and block
any noise.
• The filters can be made from either passive and active components or digital
algorithms. A passive filter only uses capacitors, resistors, and inductors with a
maximum gain of one.
• An active filter uses passive components in addition to active components such
as operational amplifiers and transistors.
• State-of-the-art signal conditioners use digital filters because they are easy to
adjust and no hardware is required.
• A digital filter is a mathematical filter used to manipulate a signal, such as
blocking or passing a particular frequency range. They use logic components such
as ASICs, FPGAs or in the form of a sequential program with a signal processor.
• The excitation sources may be an alternating or a d.c. voltage source.
The d.c. system is comparatively simple as shown in Fig.
• The resistance transducers like strain gauges, constitute one arm or
more than one arm of a wheatstone bridge which is excited by an
isolated d.c. source.
• The bridge can be balanced by a potentiometer and can also be
calibrated for unbalanced conditions.
• The desirable characteristics of a d.c. amplifier are :
• (i) It may need balanced differential inputs giving a high Common
mode rejection ratio (CMRR). This is elaborated later on in this
chapter.
• (ii) It should have an extremely good thermal and long term stability.
• The advantages of a d.c. amplifier are that:
• (i) It is easy to calibrate at low frequencies.
• (ii) It is able to recover from an overload condition unlike its a.c.
counterpart.
• But the greatest disadvantage of a d.c. amplifier is that it suffers from
the problem of drift.
• Thus low frequency spurious signals come out as data information.
For this reason special low drift d.c. amplifiers are used.
• The d.c. amplifier is followed by a lowpass filter which is used to
eliminate high frequency components or noise from the data signal.
• In order to overcome the problems that are encountered in d.c.
systems, a.c. systems are used. In a.c. systems, the Carrier-type a.c.
Signal Conditioning systems are used as shown in Fig.

• The transducers used are the variable resistance or variable

inductance transducers. They are employed between carrier
frequencies of 50 Hz to 200 kHz. The carrier frequencies are much
higher, they are at least 5 to 10 times the signal frequencies.
• Transducer parameter variations amplitude modulate the carrier
frequencies at the bridge output and waveform is amplified and
demodulated.
• The demodulation is Phase Sensitive so that the polarity of d.c.
output indicates the direction of the parameter change in the bridge
output
• In a carrier system amplifier drift and spurious signals are not of much
importance unless they modulate the carrier. However, it is more
difficult to achieve a stable carrier oscillator than a comparable d.c.
stabilized source.
• In carrier systems, it is easy to obtain very high rejection of mains
frequency pick up.
• Active filters can be used to reject this frequency and prevent
overloading of a.c. amplifier.
• The phase sensitive, demodulators filter out carrier frequency
components of the data signal.
• D.C. systems are generally used for common resistance transducers
such as potentiometers and resistance strain gauges.
• A.C. systems have to be used for variable reactance transducers and
for systems where signals have to be transmitted via long cables to
connect the transducers to the signal conditioning equipment.
• After the physical quantities like temperature, pressure, strain,
acceleration etc. have been transduced into their analogous electrical
form and amplified to sufficient current or voltage levels (say 1 V to
10 V), they are further processed by electronic circuits.
• In some applications, the signal does not need any further processing
and the amplified signal may be directly applied to indicating or
recording or control instruments.
• But many applications involve further processing of signals which
involve linear and non-linear operations as mentioned earlier.
• The signal may be applied to sample and hold (S/H) circuit as shown
in Fig.
• This may be fed to an analog multiplexer and analog to digital (A/D)
converter.
• If the signal is in digital form it may be applied to a variety of digital
systems like a digital computer, digital controller, digital data logger or
a digital data transmitter.
• The sample and hold units sample the different inputs at a specified
time and then hold the voltage levels at their output while analog
multiplexer performs the time division multiplexing (TDM) operation
between different data inputs.
• Time Division Multiplexing means that each input channel is
sequentially connected to the multiplexer for a certain specified time.
(The input signals are not applied to the multiplexer continuously but
are connected in turn to the multiplexer thereby sharing time).
• The timing of the various input channels is controlled by a control
unit. This unit controls the sample and hold (S/H) circuits, the
multiplexer and the analog to digital (A/D) converter. The control unit
may be controller itself.
• In case time division multiplexing is not used, the frequency division
multiplexer (FDM) may be used.
• In this case, the multiple data analog inputs can remain in analog
form and are transmitted all at the same time, using frequency
division multiplexing (FDM).
• The voltage input from the signal conditioning equipment is
converted into frequency. Thus any change in voltage input of the
measurand produces a corresponding change in frequency.
• Earlier circuits comprising of discrete electronic components were
used where impedance transformations, amplification, and other
signal conditioning were required.
• The requirement to produce designs from discrete components has
given way to easier and more reliable methods of signal conditioning
which use integrated circuits (ICs).
• Many special circuits and general purpose amplifiers are now
contained in IC packages producing a quick solution to signal
conditioning problems, together with small size, low power
consumption and, low cost.
OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIER
• The operational amplifier (OPAMP) manufactured with integrated circuit
technology contains transistors, diodes, resistors and capacitors, is an
extremely versatile device that does countless jobs in many electronic
circuits.

• It important electronic circuits as well as a device for performing such

important functions as isolation, inversion, addition, subtraction,
multiplication and division.
• It can also be used for performing mathematical operations like integration
and differentiation which together with its summing capabilities puts it in a
position to model differential equations of physical systems.
• One of the most popular OPAMPs is the 741 type, which has been
produced by several manufacturers for many years. Also several
improved versions have been developed having different internal
circuitry to the original 741 OPAMPs.

• The 741 is an eight pin device. The Operational amplifier has two
types of connections :
• (i) Inverting and
• (ii) Non-inverting.
• When a voltage is applied to inverting input pin 2, the output voltage
has a sign which is opposite to that of the input.
• In case, the input voltage is applied to pin 3, which is designated as
non-inverting, the output voltage has the same sign as the input.
• The operational amplifier is shown by a triangular symbol with
inverting and non-inverting inputs being connected at pins 2 and 3
respectively.
• The OPAMP output appears at pin 6. Several ether pins are labelled in
the diagram.
• The most important of these are 7 and 4, where positive and negative
constant supply voltages, V+ and V~ are connected to supply energy
to the integrated circuit.
• Usually this supply voltage is fixed at ±15 V with respect to ground
reference. The OPAMP does not work without the supply voltage.
• Two other pins (1 and 5) are provided on 741 and are labelled offset
null. The offset effects are one of the several types of non-ideal
behaviour of OPAMPs and are explained later in this chapter.
Ideal Operational Amplifier

• The properties of an ideal operational amplifier are :

• (i) It should have an infinite input impedance i.e., Z- = ∞
• (ii) It should have a zero output impedance i.e., z0=0
• (iii) It should have an infinite open loop gain i.e., ∞.

• (iv) It should have a flat frequency response over a wide range of

frequency i.e., its band-width BW = ∞.
• Three notable features characterise the OPAMP model shown in Fig.
In the interest of stressing a simplified strategy for analysis, the
idealised versions of these features are specified.
• These are :
• (i) Input impedance Z should be infinite. The actual value may be of
the order of several megohms, but this is tantamount to infinity.
• (ii) Output impedance Z should ideally be zero. In actual amplifiers,
the output resistance is below 100 ohm, but for the level of the load
resistors generally used across the output terminals of the OPAMP in
applications, this value can be considered as negligible.
• (iii) Open loop gain is considered to be infinity.
Inverting Amplifier
Noninverting Amplifier
Unity follower
Summing Amplifier
• The circuit shows a three-input summing amplifier circuit, which
provides a means of algebraically summing (adding) three voltages,
each multiplied by a constant-gain factor.
• Using the equivalent representation shown in Fig., the output voltage
can be expressed in terms of the inputs as

• In other words, each input adds a voltage to the output multiplied by

its separate constant- gain multiplier.
• If more inputs are used, they each add an additional component to the
output.
Integrator
• So far, the input and feedback components have been resistors. If the
feedback component used is a capacitor, as shown in Fig., the
resulting connection is called an integrator.
• The virtual-ground equivalent circuit shows that an expression for the
voltage between input and output can be derived in terms of the
current I, from input to output.
• Recall that virtual ground means that we can consider the voltage at
the junction of R and XC to be ground (since Vi 0 V) but that no
current goes into ground at that point.
• The capacitive impedance can be expressed as
Differentiator
• A differentiator circuit is shown in Fig. While not as useful as the
circuit forms covered above, the differentiator does provide a useful
operation, the resulting relation for the circuit being where the scale
factor is -RC.
Subtractor
Non-ldeal Operational Amplifiers
• The characteristics of an actual operational amplifier differ from those
of an ideal OPAMP as follows :