Signal Conditioning

Isolated analog products for data acquisition and control. Designed to protect valuable measurement and control signals and equipment. The need to measure and control the operation of machinery or process equipment is as old as the industrial revolution. Today, plant instrumentation is the nervous system and brain of the modern manufacturing plant. It regulates and monitors the operation of equipment within the plant. It also provides the means to make plants economical. Instrumentation enables the use of processes that would be difficult or impossible to operate without automation.

Instrumentation has evolved from purely analog systems to the "smart" systems used today, ranging from simple potentiometers to complex analyzers such as infrared spectrophotometers. Yet for all the advances in system development, analog field measurements and the electronic signals they carry are still necessary components of all systems.

Analog measurements take many forms, but can be broadly classified into two types - physical measurements and compositional measurements. The first type includes pressure, temperature, flow, force, vibration, mass, and density. The second includes measurements such as conductivity, pH, and chemical analysis.

Obtaining, maintaining, and improving the quality of these measurements is the goal of good signal conditioning. Good signal conditioning preserves the quality of available measurements and allows plant systems to make the best use of installed control and data acquisition Systems.