ABSTRACT
The widespread diffusion of semiconductor devices led to the development of a completely different class of voltmeters: electronic voltmeters. The electronic voltmeters can be divided into analog electronic voltmeters and digital electronic voltmeters. This chapter presents a rough classification of the most commonly employed voltmeters, according to their operating principle and their typical application field. Electromechanical voltmeters measure the applied voltage by transducing it into a mechanical torque. This can be accomplished in different ways, basically because of the interactions between currents (electrodynamic voltmeters), between a current and a magnetic field (electromagnetic voltmeters), between electrified conductors (electrostatic voltmeters or electrometers), and between currents induced in a conducting vane (induction voltmeters). Digital voltmeters can be divided into two main operating principle classes: the integrating types and the nonintegrating types. The chapter gives an example for both types.
