Signal conditioning

Signal Conditioning Operations

• Transducers sense physical phenomenon such as rise in temperature and
convert the measurand into an electrical signal viz. voltage or current.

• However these signals may not be in their appropriate forms to employ them
to control a mechatronics system.

• The figure below shows various signal conditioning operations which are
being carried out in controlling a mechatronics based system.

• These activities are carried out by using signal conditioning devices and the
process is termed as ‘signal conditioning’.
Signal Conditioning Operations
Signal Conditioning Operations

• Signal conditioning system enhances the quality of signal coming from a

sensor in terms of:
1. Protection
• To protect the damage to the next element of mechatronics system such
microprocessors from the high current or voltage signals.
2. Right type of signal
• To convert the output signal from a transducer into the desired form i.e.
voltage / current.
3. Right level of the signal
• To amplify or attenuate the signals to a right /acceptable level for the next
element.
Signal Conditioning Operations
4. Noise
• To eliminate noise from a signal
5. Manipulation
• To manipulate the signal from its nonlinear form to the linear form.
 1. Amplification/Attenuation
• Various applications of Mechatronics system such as machine tool control unit of
a CNC machine tool accept voltage amplitudes in range of 0 to 10 Volts.

• However many sensors produce signals of the order of milli volts. This low level
input signals from sensors must be amplified to use them for further control
action.

• Operational amplifiers (op-amp) are widely used for amplification of input

signals.
1.1 Operational amplifier (op-amp)

• Operational Amplifier is a basic and an important part of a signal conditioning

system. It is often abbreviated as op-amp.
• Op-amp is a high gain voltage amplifier with a differential input. The gain is of
the order of 100000 or more.
• Differential input is a method of transmitting information with two different
electronic signals which are generally complementary to each other.
Operational amplifier (op-amp)
• In general op-amp amplifies the difference between input voltages (V+ and
V-). The output of an operational amplifier can be written as

-the inverting configuration of an op-amp.

 2. Filtering

• Output signals from sensors contain noise due to various external factors like
improper hardware connections, environment etc.

• Noise gives an error in the final output of system. Therefore it must be

removed.

• In practice, change in desired frequency level of output signal is a commonly

noted noise.

• This can be rectified by using filters.

Filtering

• Following types of filters are used in practice:

1. Low Pass Filter

2. High Pass Filter
3. Band Pass Filter
4. Band Reject Filter
 2.1 Low Pass Filter
• Low pass filter is used to allow low frequency content and to reject high
frequency content of an input signal. Its configuration is shown in Figure
 Low Pass Filter

-In the circuit shown in Figure , resistance and capacitance are in series with
voltage at resistance terminal is input voltage and voltage at capacitance terminal
is output voltage
-By selecting suitable values of R and C we can obtain desired values of frequency
to pass in.
2.2 High Pass Filter
• These types of filters allow high frequencies to pass through it and block the
lower frequencies. The figure shows circuitry for high pass filter.
High Pass Filter

-It selects frequencies above a breakpoint frequency ω = 1/RC as

shown in Figure .
-By selecting suitable values of R and C we can allow desired (high)
frequency level to pass through.
2.3 Band Pass Filter
• In some applications, we need to filter a particular band of frequencies from a
wider range of mixed signals.
• For this purpose, the properties of low-pass and high-pass
filters circuits can be combined to design a filter which is called as band pass
filter.
- Band pass filter can be developed by connecting a low-pass and a high-pass
filter in series.
2.4 Band Reject Filter
• These filters pass all frequencies above and below a particular range set by
the operator/manufacturer.
• They are also known as band stop filters or notch filters.
• They are constructed by connecting a low-pass and a high-pass filter in
parallel as shown in Figure
 Protection, conversion and pulse width
modulation
1. Protection
• In many situations sensors or transducers provide very high output signals such
as high current or high voltage which may damage the next element of the
control system such as microprocessor.
1.2 Protection from high voltage
• Zener diode circuits are widely used to protect a mechatronics control system
from high values of voltages and wrong polarity.
2. Wheatstone bridge
Wheatstone bridge
• Wheatstone bridge is used to convert a resistance change detected by a
transducer to a voltage change.
• Figure, shows the basic configuration of a Wheatstone bridge.
• When the output voltage Vout is zero then the potential at B must be equal
to D and we can say that,

Dividing the above equations

The bridge is thus balanced

3. Pulse modulation
 Pulse modulation

-During amplification of low level DC signals from a sensor by using Op-amp, the
output gets drifted due to drift in the gain of Op-amp.
-This problem is solved by converting the analogue DC signal into a
sequence of pulses.
Pulse modulation
• This can be achieved by chopping the DC signal in to a chain of pulses as
shown in first Figure.
• The heights of pulses are related to the DC level of the input signal.
• This process is called as Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). It is widely used
in control systems as a mean of controlling the average value of the DC
voltage.
• If the width of pulses is changed then the average value of the voltage can
be changed as shown in the second Figure.
• A term Duty Cycle is used to define the fraction of each cycle for which the
voltage is high.
• Duty cycle of 50% means that for half of the each cycle, the output is high.
Data conversion devices

• Data Conversion Devices are very important components of a Machine

Control Unit (MCU).
• MCUs are controlled by various computers or microcontrollers which are
accepting signals only in Digital Form i.e. in the form of 0s and 1s.
• while the signals received from signal conditioning module or sensors are
generally in analogue form (continuous).
• Therefore a system is essentially required to convert analog signals into
digital form and vis-à-vis.
• Most of the actuators e.g. DC servo motors only accept analogue signals.
Data conversion devices
Basic components used in ADCs and DACs

1. Comparators
- Comparator is a combination of diodes and Operational Amplifiers.
- A comparator is a device which compares the voltage input or current
input at its two terminals and gives output in form of digital signal
i.e. in form of 0s and 1s indicating which voltage is higher. If V+ and
V- be input voltages at two terminals of comparator then output of
comparator will be as
2. Encoders
• Though the output obtained from comparators are in the form of 0s and 1s, but
can’t be called as binary output.
• A sequence of 0s and 1s will be converted into binary form by using a circuit
called Encoder.
• A simple encoder converts 2n input lines into ‘n’ output lines. These ‘n’ output
lines follow binary algebra.
3. Analog to Digital Converter (ADC)

• There are various techniques of converting Analog Signals into Digital

signals which are enlisted as follows.
• However we will be discussing only Direct Conversion ADC, detail study of
other techniques is out of the scope of the present course.
1. Direct Conversion ADC or Flash ADC
2. Successive Approximation ADC
3. A ramp-compare ADC
4. Wilkinson ADC
5. Integrating ADC
6. Delta-encoded ADC or counter-ramp
7. Pipeline ADC (also called sub ranging quantizer)
8. Sigma-delta ADC (also known as a delta-sigma ADC)
9. Time-interleaved ADC
3.1 Direct Conversion ADC or Flash ADC
Direct Conversion ADC or Flash ADC
• To convert a digital signal of N-bits, Flash ADC requires comparators and
resistors.
• The circuit provides the reference voltage to all the comparators.
• Each comparator gives an output of 1 when its analog voltage is higher than
reference voltage or otherwise the output is 0. In the above circuit, reference
voltages to comparators are provided by
means of resistor ladder logic.
- The circuit described in figure 2.8.2 acts as 3 Bit ADC device.
- Let us assume this ADC works between the range of 0-10 Volts.
- The circuit requires 7 comparators and 8 resisters.
- Now the voltages across each resistor are divided in such a way that a ladder of
1 volt is built with the help of 1K-Ohm resistances. Therefore the reference
voltages across all the comparators are 1-7 volts.
 Direct Conversion ADC or Flash ADC
• Now let us assume that an input voltage signal of 2.5 V is to be converted into its
related digital form.
• As 2.5V is greater than 1V and 2V, first two comparators will give output as 1, 1.
• But 2.5V is less than 3,4,5,6,7 V values therefore all other comparators will give
0s. Thus we will have output from comparators as 0000011 (from top).
• This will be fed to the encoder logic circuit. This circuit will first change the
output in single high line format and then converts it into 3 output lines format by
using binary algebra.
• Then this digital output from ADC may be used for manipulation or actuation by
the microcontrollers or computers.
4. Digital to Analog Converters

• There are various techniques of converting Digital Signals into Analog

signals which are as follows however we will be discussing only few
important techniques in detail:
1. Pulse-width modulator
2. Oversampling DACs or interpolating DACs
3. The binary-weighted DAC
4. Switched resistor DAC
5. Switched current source DAC
6. Switched capacitor DAC
7. The R-2R ladder
8. The Successive-Approximation or Cyclic DAC,
9. The thermometer-coded DAC
4.1 Binary Weighted DAC
Binary Weighted DAC
• As name indicates, in binary weighted DAC, output voltage can be
calculated by expression which works on binary weights.
• From the figure it can be noted that most significant bit of digital input is
connected to minimum resistance and vice versa.
• Digital bits can be connected to resistance through a switch which connects
resistance-end to the ground.
• DAC output voltage can be calculated from property of operational
amplifiers. If V1 be input voltage at MSB
(most significant bit), V2 be input voltage at next bit and so on then for four
bit DAC we can write,
4.2 R-2R Ladder based DAC