‫بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم‬

Measurement and
Instrumentation

Lecture 2

Dr. Dalia Mahmoud Adam

www.daliamahmoud.webs.com
 Measurement units
The first improved measurement unit was a unit of length
(the metre) defined as 107 times the polar quadrant of the
earth. A platinum bar made to this length was established
as a standard of length in the early part of the nineteenth
century. This was superseded by a superior quality
standard bar in 1889, manufactured from a platinum–
iridium alloy. Since that time, technological research has
enabled further improvements to be made in the standard
used for defining length. Firstly, in 1960, a standard metre
was redefined in terms of 1.65076373 ð 106 wavelengths of
the radiation from krypton-86 in vacuum. More recently, in
1983, the metre was redefined yet again as the length of
path travelled by light in an interval of 1/299 792 458
seconds.
Static characteristics of instruments
 If we have a thermometer in a room and its reading shows a
temperature of 20°C, then it does not really matter whether
the true temperature of the room is 19.5°C or 20.5°C.
 Such small variations around 20°C are too small to affect
whether we feel warm enough or not. Our bodies cannot
discriminate between such close levels of temperature and
 therefore a thermometer with an inaccuracy of ± 0.5°C is
perfectly adequate.
 If we had to measure the temperature of certain chemical
processes, however, a variation of 0.5°C might have a
significant effect on the rate of reaction or even the products
of a process.
 A measurement inaccuracy much less than ±0.5°C is therefore
clearly required.
Accuracy of measurement is thus one
consideration in the choice of instrument for
a particular application. Other parameters
such as sensitivity, linearity and the reaction
to ambient temperature changes are further
considerations. These attributes are
collectively known as the static
characteristics of instruments, and are given
in the data sheet for a particular instrument.
Accuracy and inaccuracy (measurement
uncertainty)
The accuracy of an instrument is a measure
of how close the output reading of the
instrument is to the correct value.
In practice, it is more usual to quote the
inaccuracy figure rather than the accuracy
figure for an instrument.
 Inaccuracy is the extent to which a reading
might be wrong, and is often quoted as a
percentage of the full-scale (f.s.) reading of
an instrument.
Precision
Precision is a term that describes an
instrument’s degree of freedom from random
errors. If a large number of readings are
taken of the same quantity by a high
precision instrument, then the spread of
readings will be very small. Precision is often,
though incorrectly, confused with accuracy.
High precision does not imply anything about
measurement accuracy.
The figure shows the results of tests on three
industrial robots that were programmed to place
components at a particular point on a table.
 The target point was at the centre of the concentric
circles shown, and the black dots represent the
points where each robot actually deposited
components at each attempt.
 Both the accuracy and precision of Robot 1 are
shown to be low in this trial.
Robot 2 consistently puts the component down at
approximately the same place but this is the wrong
point. Therefore, it has high precision but low
accuracy.
Finally, Robot 3 has both high precision and high
accuracy, because it consistently places the
component at the correct target position.
Sensitivity of measurement
The sensitivity of measurement is a measure
of the change in instrument output that
occurs when the quantity being measured
changes by a given amount. Thus, sensitivity
is the ratio:
Example 1
The following resistance values of a platinum
resistance thermometer were measured at a
range of temperatures. Determine the
measurement sensitivity of the instrument in
ohms/°C.
Solution
For a change in temperature of 30°C, the
change in resistance is 7. Hence:
The measurement sensitivity = 7/30 =
0.233 /°C.
Errors during the
measurement process
Errors in measurement systems can be
divided into those that arise during the
measurement process and those that arise
due to later corruption of the measurement
signal by induced noise during transfer of the
signal from the point of measurement to some
other point.
Errors arising during the measurement
process can be divided into two groups,
known as systematic errors and random
errors.
Systematic errors
Systematic errors describe errors in the output readings of
a measurement system that are consistently on one side of
the correct reading, i.e. either all the errors are positive or
they are all negative.
Two major sources of systematic errors are system
disturbance during measurement and the effect of
environmental changes
Other sources of systematic error include bent meter
needles, the use of un calibrated instruments, drift in
instrument characteristics and poor cabling practices. Even
when systematic errors due to the above factors have been
reduced or eliminated, some errors remain that are
inherent in the manufacture of an instrument. These are
quantified by the accuracy figure quoted in the published
specifications contained in the instrument data sheet.
Random errors
Random errors are perturbations of the
measurement either side of the true value
caused by random and unpredictable effects,
such that positive errors and negative errors
occur in approximately equal numbers for a
series of measurements made of the same
quantity. Such perturbations are mainly
small, but large perturbations occur from
time to time, again unpredictably.
Random errors often arise when
measurements are taken by human
observation of an analogue meter, especially
where this involves interpolation between
scale points. Electrical noise can also be a
source of random errors. To a large extent,
random errors can be overcome by taking the
same measurement a number of times and
extracting a value by averaging or other
statistical techniques
Sources of systematic error
 1- System disturbance due to measurement
 If we were to start with a beaker of hot water and wished to
measure its temperature with a mercury-in-glass thermometer,
then we would take the thermometer, which would initially be
at room temperature, and plunge it into the water. In so doing,
we would be introducing a relatively cold mass (the
thermometer) into the hot water and a heat transfer would
take place between the water and the thermometer. This heat
transfer would lower the temperature of the water. Whilst the
reduction in temperature in this case would be so small as to
be undetectable by the limited measurement resolution of
such a thermometer, the effect is finite and clearly establishes
the principle that, in nearly all measurement situations, the
process of measurement disturbs the system and alters the
values of the physical quantities being measured.
2- Errors due to environmental inputs
An environmental input is defined as an
apparently real input to a measurement
system that is actually caused by a change in
the environmental conditions surrounding the
measurement system. The fact that the static
and dynamic characteristics specified for
measuring instruments are only valid for
particular environmental conditions (e.g. of
temperature and pressure).
3- Wear in instrument components
Systematic errors can frequently develop
over a period of time because of wear in
instrument components. Recalibration often
provides a full solution to this problem.
 4- Connecting leads
 In connecting together the components of a measurement
system, a common source of error is the failure to take
proper account of the resistance of connecting leads (or
pipes in the case of pneumatically or hydraulically actuated
measurement systems).
 Therefore, careful consideration needs to be given to the
choice of connecting leads.
 For instance, in typical applications of a resistance
thermometer, it is common to find that the thermometer is
separated from other parts of the measurement system by
perhaps 100 metres. The resistance of such a length of 20
gauge copper wire is 7Ω, and there is a further complication
that such wire has a temperature coefficient of 1mΩ/°C.
Reduction of systematic errors
1- Careful instrument design
 Careful instrument design is the most useful
weapon in the battle against environmental
inputs, by reducing the sensitivity of an
instrument to environmental inputs to as low a
level as possible. However, errors due to the
way in which an instrument is designed are not
always easy to correct, and a choice often has to
be made between the high cost of redesign and
the alternative of accepting the reduced
measurement accuracy if redesign is not
undertaken.
 2- Calibration
 Instrument calibration is a very important consideration in measurement
systems. All instruments suffer drift in their characteristics, and the rate at
which this happens depends on many factors, such as the environmental
conditions in which instruments are used and the frequency of their use. Thus,
errors due to instruments being out of calibration can usually be rectified by
increasing the frequency of recalibration.
 3- Manual correction of output reading
 In the case of errors that are due either to system disturbance during the act of
measurement or due to environmental changes, a good measurement
technician can substantially reduce errors at the output of a measurement
system by calculating the effect of such systematic errors and making
appropriate correction to the instrument readings.
 4- Intelligent instruments
 Intelligent instruments contain extra sensors that measure the value of
environmental inputs and automatically compensate the value of the output
reading. They have the ability to deal very effectively with systematic errors in
measurement systems, and errors can be attenuated to very low levels in many
cases.
Random errors
Random errors in measurements are caused by
unpredictable variations in the measurement
system. They are usually observed as small
perturbations of the measurement either side of the
correct value, i.e. positive errors and negative errors
occur in approximately equal numbers for a series of
measurements made of the same constant quantity.
Therefore, random errors can largely be eliminated
by calculating the average of a number of repeated
measurements, provided that the measured quantity
remains constant during the process of taking the
repeated measurements.
Statistical analysis of measurements
subject to random errors
Mean and median values
The average value of a set of measurements
of a constant quantity can be expressed as
either the mean value or the median value. As
the number of measurements increases, the
difference between the mean value and
median values becomes very small. However,
for any set of n measurements x1, x2 . . . xn of
a constant quantity, the most likely true value
is the mean given by:
Standard deviation and variance
Expressing the spread of measurements simply as
the range between the largest and smallest value
is not in fact a very good way of examining how
the measurement values are distributed about the
mean value. A much better way of expressing the
distribution is to calculate the variance or
standard deviation of the measurements. The
starting point for calculating these parameters is
to calculate the deviation (error) di of each
measurement xi from the mean value xmean:
The variance (V) is then given by:

The standard deviation is simply the square

root of the variance. Thus:
Example
Calculate  and V for measurement set
below:
398 420 394 416 404 408 400 420 396 413 430

Solution

mean = 409
“Measurement and Instrumentation
Principles” , Alan S. Morris, ch 1, ch3.