ABSTRACT
By signal conditioning, we mean the process of improving the quality of the transducer’s output signal. This includes linearization of the circuit response, amplification in cases when the signal may be too small, filtering when we need to reduce noise or unwanted signals that may mask the real signal, and to provide regulated voltage for the transducer. Signal conditioning achieves compatibility between the transducer and the subsequent stages of data acquisition. In this chapter, we also discuss converting the output of the conditioned signal to digital in order to input it to a microcontroller for processing and storage (Figure 4.1). Besides linearization by circuit techniques covered in this chapter, we can correct nonlinearity of the transducer using software in the microcontroller. We will discuss this approach in chapter 6.
