T7: METROLOGY, MEASUREMENT PRINCIPLES, AND MEASUREMENT UNCERTAINTY

to be presented by Alessandro Ferrero on April 30 (Monday), 1:30-4:30 pm

 

Contents

The measuring systems and instruments are becoming more and more complex and are presently capable of performing advanced measurement operations. The recent development of the sensor technology, the Analog-to-Digital Conversion devices, the computational capabilities of DSP devices and the relative simplicity with which they can be interconnected also on a wide area, have opened new attractive scenarios to the measurement science and practice. These new scenarios disclose also a number of new issues involving the very fundamentals of the measurement science, from the definition of a new measurement paradigm to the metrological characterisation of the obtained measurement results. This tutorial is therefore aimed at reconsidering these basic issues, having in mind their application to the modern measuring systems. A model of the measurement process, as a bridge between the empirical world and the world of knowledge and abstract concepts, will be presented. Within this model, the measurement process is only capable of providing incomplete knowledge (the measurement result) about the measurand. It will be shown how an incomplete knowledge about the measurand is still acceptable, provided that we are capable of estimating how incomplete this knowledge is. Starting from this consideration, the methods for characterizing the result of a measurement will be discussed, focusing mainly on the uncertainty, calibration and traceability concepts. A short survey on the International Metrology Organizations will be also given. After having introduced the basic concept of metrology, the basic instrument diagram will be introduced, and the diagram of the modern systems based on Digital Signal Processing techniques will be briefly discussed. The basic metrics will be covered and discussed: range, threshold, accuracy, sensitivity, resolution, linearity, stability and noise. The way these quantities can be estimated and accounted in uncertainty estimation will be discussed as well.

 

Target audience

This tutorial is mainly devoted to measurement practitioners who want to be up-to-date with the most recent developments in the measurement science and practice. It is also devoted to young engineers and scientists (including Ph.D. students), who are not involved in instrumentation and measurement as their primary field of interest, but whose work relies on experimental results and therefore they need to improve their expertise in this field.

 

Presenter's biography

Alessandro Ferrero was born in Milano, Italy, in 1954. He received his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano University in 1978. He is presently Full Professor of Electrical and Electronic Measurements at Politecnico di Milano. His main research interests have been always related to the application of Digital Signal Processing techniques to measurement on electric power systems. He has pioneered several methods and techniques for material and components characterization, power and energy metering, and the use of Virtual Instruments. He has published over 150 papers in scientific journals and in the proceedings of conferences, and is the recipient of the IEEE Joseph F. Keithley Award in Instrumentation and Measurement for 2006. Prof. Ferrero is a Fellow of the IEEE, and a member of the AdCom of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society, where he presently holds the position of Vice President for Publications.