MECHATRONICS

ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL CONVERTERS

PUSHPARAJ MANI PATHAK

MECHANICAL & INDUSTRIAL ENGINEEING, IIT ROORKEE

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 Mechatronic system components
ACTUATORS SENSORS
▪ Solenoids, voice coils ▪switches
INPUT SIGNAL
▪ DC motors ▪Potentiometer, Thermocouple CONDITIONING AND
▪ Stepper motors ▪Photoelectrics, Accelerometer INTERFACING
▪ Servo motors ▪Digital encoder ▪ Discrete circuits ▪ Filters
▪Hydraulics, Pneumatics ▪Strain gauge, MEMs ▪ Amplifiers ▪ A/D, D/D

OUTPUT SIGNAL
DIGITAL CONTROL ARCHITECTURES
GRAPHICAL CONDITIONING &
DISPLAYS ▪Logic circuits ▪Control algorithms
INTERFACING
▪LEDs, LCD, CRT ▪Microcontroller ▪communication
▪D/A, D/D ▪Power transistors
▪Digital display ▪Sequencing & Timing ▪SBC, PLC
▪Amplifiers ▪Power op amps
▪Logic & Arithmetic ▪A/D, D/D
▪PWM

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Analog & Digital Signals

• In analogue signal changes are

continuous whereas, a digital signal
exists only at specific levels or states
and changes its level in discrete steps.
• Most digital signals have only two
Analogue signal
states: high and low.
• A system using two-state signals
allows the application of Boolean
logic and binary number
Digital signal
representations.
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Digital Signals

• The o/p from most sensors tends to be in analogue form, the

size of the o/p being related to the size of the input.
• A microprocessor is used as part of the measurement or
control system and it can take only digital signals.
• So the analogue output from the sensor has to be converted
into a digital form before it can be used as an input to the
microprocessor.
• Likewise, most actuators operate with analogue inputs.

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• So, the digital output from a microprocessor has to be
converted into an analogue form before it can be used as an
input by the actuator.

A/D Micro- D/A

Sensor Actuator
converter processor converter

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Binary System

• It is based on two symbols or states 0 and 1, these possibly

being 0 V and 5 V signals.
• 0, 1 are termed as binary digits or bits.
• Digit position in number indicates the weight attached to each
digit.
• Weight increases by a factor 2 as we proceed from right to
left.
−− − 23 22 21 20
Bit 3 Bit 2 Bit 1 Bit 0
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• Example: the decimal number 15 = 23 + 22 + 21 + 20
• Thus binary representation of 15 is 1111
• The combination of bits to represent a number is a word.
• Thus 1111 is a 4-bit word.
• Such a word could be used to represent the size of a signal.
• The term 1 byte = 8 bits.

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Decimal and their Binary Equivalent
Binary Decimal Binary Decimal
0000 0 1000 8
0001 1 1001 9
0010 2 1010 10
0011 3 1011 11
0100 4 1100 12
0101 5 1101 13
0110 6 1110 14
0111 7 1111 15
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Analogue and Digital Signals

• A/D conversion involves converting analogue signals into

binary words.
• A clock supplies regular time signal pulses to the A/D
converter and every time it receives a pulse it samples the
analogue signal
Input Sample A/D Output
Analogue and hold converter
Digital
signal signal
• We have a analogue signal.
• The clock signal supplies the time signals at which the
sampling occurs.
• The result of the sampling is a series of narrow pulses.
• A sample and hold unit is then used to hold each
sampled value until the next pulse occurs.
• The sample and hold unit is necessary because the
A/D Conversion requires a finite amount of time (i.e.,
conversion time), to convert the analogue signal into a
digital.
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Analog-to-digital Conversion

• A/D converter is an electronic device that converts an

analogue voltage to digital code.
• The o/p of the A/D converter can be directly interfaced to
digital devices such as microcontrollers and computers.
• Analog-to-digital conversion, conceptually involves two steps:
Quantizing and Coding.
• Quantizing is the transformation of a continuous analog i/p
into a set of discrete output states and coding is the
assignment of a digital code word/number to each o/p state.
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• The resolution of an A/D converter is the number of bits used to
digitally approximate the analog value of the input.
• The number of possible states N is equal to the number of bit
combinations that can be o/p from the converter, i.e., 𝑁 = 2𝑛
• Where n is the number of bits. For example in a 3-bit device has 23 or 8
o/p states.
• The o/p states are usually numbered consecutively from 0 to (N-1)i.e.,
0 to 7 in this case.
• Most A/D converters are 8, 10 or 12 bit devices that resolves 28, 210,
212 or 256, 1024, 4096 states.

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• The analog quantization size Q, sometimes called the code
width, is defined as the full-scale range of the A/D converter
divided by the number of output states
𝑄 = (𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑥 −𝑉𝑚𝑖𝑛 )/𝑁
• It is a measure of the analog change that can be resolved by
the converter.
• The number of analog decision points that occur in the
process of quantizing is (N-1), i.e. 7 in case of 3 bit device.
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• Consider a 3-bit device, which has 23 or 8 output states as listed in the
first column.
• The output states are numbered from 0 to (N-1).
• The corresponding code word for each output state is listed in the
second column.
• The decision points occur at 1.25 V, 2.50 V, . . . , and 8.75 V.
Code Width, 𝑄 = (𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑥 −𝑉𝑚𝑖𝑛 )/𝑁 = (10 − 0)/8 = 1.25 𝑉
• This means that the amplitude of the digitized signal has an error of at
most 1.25 V. Therefore, the A/D converter can only resolve a voltage to
within 1.25 V of the exact analog voltage.
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Example: 7 111
6 110
5 101
A 3-bit 4 100
device 3 011
has 23 or 2 010
8 output
1 001
states
0 000
O/P O/P 0.00- 1.25- 2.50- 3.75- 5.00- 6.25- 7.50- 8.75-
state code 1.25 2.50 3.75 5.00 6.25 7.50 8.75 10.0
Discretized Analog Voltage Ranges
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Shannon’s Sampling Theorem
• The first step for A/D conversion is to numerically evaluate the
signal at discrete instants in time.
• This process is called sampling, and the result is a digitized
signal composed of discrete values corresponding to each
sample.
• So how fast or often the signal should be sampled to obtain an
accurate representation?
• It needs high speed hardware and large computer memory.

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• Shannon’s Sampling Theorem states that, the sampling rate of
a signal should be more than two times the maximum
frequency component in the signal to retain all frequency
components.
• In other words, to represent the analog signal, the digital
samples must be taken at a frequency 𝑓𝑠 (sampling rate) such
that
𝑓𝑠 > 2𝑓𝑚𝑎𝑥

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• 𝑓𝑠 > 2𝑓𝑚𝑎𝑥
• Where 𝑓𝑚𝑎𝑥 (Nyquist frequency) is the highest frequency
component in the input analog signal.
• Time period between digital samples is ∆𝑡 = 1/𝑓𝑠
• If sampling rate is 5000 Hz, time interval between samples
would be 1/5000 = 0.2 ms

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Aliasing

• If a signal is sampled at less than two times its maximum

frequency component, then aliasing will occur.
• Twelve equally spaced samples are taken over 10 cycles of the
original signal. Therefore, the sampling frequency is 1.2𝑓0 ,
where 𝑓0 is the frequency of the original sine wave.
• Because the sampling frequency is not greater than 2𝑓0 , it will
not capture the frequency in the original signal.

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• Furthermore, the apparent frequency in the sampled signal is
0.2𝑓0 (2 aliased signal cycles for ten original signal cycles).
• Therefore, under-sampling not only results in errors but
also creates information that is not really there!

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 Analog-to-Digital Conversion
• To properly acquire an analog voltage signal for digital
processing, the following components must be properly
selected and applied in this sequence:
0011 0010 0100
0011 0010 1011
0001 0011 1100
0011 0101 0111

Buffer Low-pass sample A/D Computer

Sensor
Amplifier filter & hold converter memory

Components used in A/D conversion

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• The buffer amplifier isolates the output from the input (i.e., it
draws negligible current and power from the input) and
provides a signal in a range close to but not exceeding the full
input voltage range of the A/D converter.
• The low-pass filter removes any undesirable high- frequency
components in the signal that could produce aliasing. The
cutoff frequency of the low-pass filter should be no greater
than 1/2 the sampling rate.

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• The sample and hold amplifier maintains a fixed input value
(from an instantaneous sample) during the short conversion
time of the A/D converter.
• The converter should have a resolution and analog
quantization size appropriate to the system and signal.
• The computer must be properly interfaced to the A/D
converter system to store and process the data.

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• The A/D system components described above can be found
packaged in a variety of commercial products called data
acquisition (DAC or DAQ) cards or modules.
• DAC products are available in a variety of form factors
including PC and instrument panel plug-in cards, laptop
computer PCMCIA cards, and stand-alone external units with
standard interfaces (e.g., USB). DAC and modules usually
support various high-level language interfaces (e.g., C++ , Visual
Basic, FORTRAN) that give easy access to the product’s features.
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• National Instruments’ LabVIEW software is an example.

Various form factors of data acquisition products

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Analog-to-Digital Converters

• The input to an ADC is an analogue signal and the output is a

binary word that represents the level of the input signal.
• A/D converters are designed based on a number of different
principles:
1. Successive Approximation
2. Flash or Parallel Encoding
3. Single-slope and Dual-slope Integration
4. Switched Capacitor
5. Delta Sigma
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• Successive approximations
Controls the admission of
pulses to storage register
Clock
Analogue i/p Comparator
4 bit
Gate 1 0 0 0 storage
register

DAC

Digital o/p
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• A voltage is generated by a clock emitting a regular sequence
of pulses which are counted in a binary manner.
• Resulting binary word is converted into an analogue voltage
by a digital to analogue converter..
• This voltage rises in steps and is compared with the analogue
i/p voltage from the sensor.
• When the clock generated voltage passes the i/p analogue
voltage the pulses from the clock are stopped being counted
by a gate.
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• o/p of the counter at that time in the digital representation of
the voltage.
• While the comparison could be accomplished by starting the
count at 1, the LSB, and then proceeding bit by bit upwards, a
faster method is by successive approximations.
• This involves selecting the MSB that is less than the analogue
value, then adding successive lesser bits for which the total
does not exceed the analogue value.

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• For example, we might start the comparison with 1000. If this
is too large we try 0100. If this is too small we then try 0110. If
this is too large we try 0101.
• Because each of the bits in the word is tried in sequence, with
an n-bit word it only takes n steps to make the comparison.
• Thus if the clock has a frequency f, the time between pulses is
1/f .
• Hence the time taken to generate the word, i.e. the
conversion time, is nf.
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References

• W. Bolton, Mechatronics: Electronic Control Systems in

Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (6th Edition), Pearson,
2015
• R. Merzouki, A. K. Samantaray, P. M. Pathak, B. Ould
Bouamama, Intelligent Mechatronic Systems: Modeling,
Control and Diagnosis, ISBN 978-1-4471-4627-8, 2013,
Springer, London
• D.G. Alciatore and Michael B. Histand, Introduction to
Mechatronics, Tata Mc Graw Hill, 2012.
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Thank You

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