Electronics Unit Lecture 7 Representing a continuously varying physical quantity by a sequence of discrete numerical values. 03 07 10 14 09 02 00 04 LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 2 Conversion Methods (selected types, there are others) Ladder Comparison Successive Approximation Slope Integration Flash Comparison LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 3 Ladder Comparison LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 4 Single slope integration Charge a capacitor at constant current Count clock ticks Stop when the capacitor voltage matches the input Cannot achieve high resolution Capacitor and/or comparator - + IN C R S Enable N-bit Output Q Oscillator Clk C o u n t e r
Start Conversion Start Conversion 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 Time V o l t a g e
a c c r o s s
t h e
c a p a c i t o r
Vin Counting time LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 5 Successive Approximation LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 6 Flash Comparison If N is the number of bits in the output word. Then 2 N comparators will be required. With modern microelectronics this is quite possible, but will be expensive. LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 7 Pro and Cons Slope Integration & Ladder Approximation Cheap but Slow
LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 8 Pro and Cons Flash Comparison Fast but Expensive Slope Integration & Ladder Approximation Cheap but Slow
LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 9 Pro and Cons Successive Approximation The Happy Medium ?? Slope Integration & Ladder Approximation Cheap but Slow Flash Comparison Fast but Expensive
LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 10 Resolution Suppose a binary number with N bits is to represent an analog value ranging from 0 to A
There are 2 N possible numbers
Resolution = A / 2 N
LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 11 Resolution Example Temperature range of 0 K to 300 K to be linearly converted to a voltage signal of 0 to 2.5 V, then digitized with an 8-bit A/D converter
2.5 / 2 8 = 0.0098 V, or about 10 mV per step 300 K / 2 8 = 1.2 K per step LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 12 Resolution Example Temperature range of 0 K to 300 K to be linearly converted to a voltage signal of 0 to 2.5 V, then digitized with a 10-bit A/D converter
2.5 / 2 10 = 0.00244V, or about 2.4 mV per step 300 K / 2 10 = 0.29 K per step Is the noise present in the system well below 2.4 mV ? LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 13 Quantization Noise Each conversion has an average uncertainty of one- half of the step size (A / 2 N )
This quantization error places an upper limit on the signal to noise ratio that can be realized.
Maximum (ideal) SNR 6 N + 1.8 decibels (N = # bits) e.g. 8 bit 49.8 db, 10 bit 61.8 db LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 14 Signal to Noise Ratio Recovering a signal masked by noise Some audio examples In each successive example the noise power is reduced by a factor of two (3 db reduction), thus increasing the signal to noise ratio by 3 db each time. Example 1 Example 2 Example 3 Example 4 LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 15 Conversion Time Time required to acquire a sample of the analog signal and determine the numerical representation.
Sets the upper limit on the sampling frequency.
For the A/D on the BalloonSat board, T C 32 s, So the sampling rate cannot exceed about 30,000 samples per second (neglecting program overhead) LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 16 Data Collection Sampling Rate The Nyquist Rate A signal must be sampled at a rate at least twice that of the highest frequency component that must be reproduced.
Example Hi-Fi sound (20-20,000 Hz) is generally sampled at about 44 kHz.
External temperature during flight need only be sampled every few seconds at most.
LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 17 Activity E7a Do the HuSAC
a party game for techies...
Human Successive Approximation Converter
LSU 10/28/2004 Electronics 7 18 Activity E7b Data Acquisition Using BalloonSat