Analog to Digital Conversion

- The procedure for converting an analog signal from the process into digital form typically consists
of the following steps and hardware devices, as illustrated in figure above.
1) Sensor and transducer
o Measuring device that generates the analog signals
2) Signal Conditioning
o To filter random noise and conversion from one signal form to another such as converting
current into a voltage
3) Multiplexer
o Used to time-share the analog-to-digital converter among multiple input channels.
4) Amplifier
o Used to scale the incoming signal up or down to be compatible with the range of the
analog-to-digital converter.
5) Analog-to-digital converter
o Convert the incoming analog signal into its digital counterpart.
- Analog-to-digital conversion occurs in three phase:
1) Sampling
o Consist of converting the continuous signal into series of discrete analog signal at periodic
intervals
2) Quantization
o Each discrete analog signal is assigned to one of a finite number of previously defined
amplitude levels.
3) Encoding
o The discrete amplitude levels obtained during quantization are converted into digital code,
representing the amplitude level as sequence of binary digits.
- Factors that are considered during selection of analog-to-digital converter:
1) Sampling rate
o the rate at which the continuous analog signals are sampled or polled.
2) Conversion time
o the time interval between wen an incoming signal is applied and when the digital value is
determined by the quantization and encoding phases of the conversion procedure.
 o Depends on:
Number of bits n used to define the converted digital values
Type of conversion procedure used by the ADC
3) Resolution
o The precision with which the analog signal is evaluated.
4) Conversion method
o Method used to convert analog to digital.