Front-end architecture for a measurement instrument
First Claim
1. A measurement front-end for a measurement instrument comprising:
- (a) a signal conditioner for receiving a signal voltage and producing an input voltage from said signal voltage;
(b) a sampling system coupled to said signal conditioner for receiving said input voltage and producing digital samples of said input signal; and
(c) a plurality of digital extraction filters connected in parallel and directly coupled to said sampling system to receive simultaneously said digital samples and simultaneously extract a plurality of measurement parameters of said input signal from said digital samples.
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Abstract
A front-end architecture is provided for a measurement instrument having a single path for the input signal for conversion into digital samples. A signal conditioner may be coupled via a pair of test leads across a voltage source, current source, or component to develop an input signal. The input signal is provided to a sampling system, which comprises a sigma-delta converter followed by a decimation filter, which over-samples the input signal to produce a continuous stream of digital samples. The digital samples are provided to a set of digital extraction filters, each digital extraction filter having a structure and transfer function adapted for extracting a measurement parameter from the stream of digital samples. Parameter extraction is performed on a continuous basis so that the digital samples and the resulting digital measurement values arrive in a continuous stream. Extracted parameters include the d.c. value of the input signal, the rms value of the input signal, the waveform parameters of the input signal, and the peak min/max values of the input signal.
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Citations
12 Claims
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1. A measurement front-end for a measurement instrument comprising:
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(a) a signal conditioner for receiving a signal voltage and producing an input voltage from said signal voltage; (b) a sampling system coupled to said signal conditioner for receiving said input voltage and producing digital samples of said input signal; and (c) a plurality of digital extraction filters connected in parallel and directly coupled to said sampling system to receive simultaneously said digital samples and simultaneously extract a plurality of measurement parameters of said input signal from said digital samples. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. In a measurement instrument, a method for obtaining a plurality of measurement parameters from a signal voltage, comprising:
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(a) conditioning said signal voltage to obtain an input signal; (b) sampling said input signal in a sampling system to obtain digital samples; and (c) extracting simultaneously said plurality of measurement parameters from said digital samples using a plurality of parallel-connected digital extraction filters. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12)
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Specification