Detecting the world

• Build cost-effective data recording and analysis systems on the PC
  
• Measure speed, temperature, force, pressure, voltage, amperage, and resistance

Do you need to build a system that can capture and analyze real-world data including speed, temperature, force, pressure, voltage, amperage, or electrical resistance? If so, you will find this an essential guide to building, programming, and using accurate and cost-effective PC-based data acquisition systems. You'll find designs for:

• electronic measurement probing with physical transducers and signal conditioning
  
• converting analog to digital records
  
• software techniques appropriate for collecting, compressing, storing, reducing, analyzing, and presenting measurements

While there is no typical data acquisition system, McCombs has identified the basic concepts that occur in all systems. You'll learn about selecting power supplies, sensors, and transducers, and you can even develop a fully functional PC-based voltmeter, ammeter, and ohmmeter!

C++ code examples on the companion disk show how to use the data acquisition programs with Windows 95 or DOS, and can be ported to Presentation Manager under OS/2 and to X11 under Linux- or Intel-based UNIX.

Table of contents :

List of Figures

Chapter 1: Overview

1.1 The Building Blocks of a Data Acquisition System

1.2 Physical World

1.3 Transducer Hardware

1.4 Transducer Support Circuitry

1.5 Digital Electronics

1.6 Software

1.7 Summary

Chapter 2: Measuring Speed

2.1 Building the Power Supply

2.2 The Optical Position Sensors

2.3 Build a Comparator to Detect the Phototransistor Output

2.4 Build a TTL Level Time Base to Pace the Flow of Data

2.5 Build the Parallel Port Interface Circuit

2.6 The Software

2.7 Procedure for Measuring Car Speed

2.8 Summary

Chapter 3: Measuring Voltage, Current, and Resistance

3.1 System Specifications

3.2 The Design Scheme

3.3 Summary

Chapter 4: Software Calibration and Analysis

4.1 Software

4.2 Concluding Notes

Chapter 5: Measuring Temperature

5.1 Transducer Types

5.2 System Specifications

5.3 General Purpose Instrumentation Amplifier

5.4 Thermistor Thermometry

5.5 Solid State Thermometry Using the Analog Devices AD590

5.6 Thermocouple Thermometry Using a K-type Thermocouple

5.7 Calibration

5.8 Summary

Chapter 6: Measuring Force and Pressure

6.1 The Wheatstone Bridge

6.2 Force Measurement

6.3 Pressure Measurement

6.4 Calibration

6.5 Summary

Appendix A: Units Reference Guide

A.1 SI base units

A.2 Standards