Processing sensor data
Sensors measuring various attributes of a system, such as the pressure in a pipe or the air temperature, will generally contain some amount of error. Sensor measurement errors have a variety of causes, including sensor calibration inaccuracies, non-ideal measurement configurations, temperature dependence of the sensor or its associated circuitry, and the background noise that is always present in electronic circuits.
In some cases, particularly with non-critical measurements, it may not be necessary to take steps to compensate for measurement error. In many applications, however, it is critical to eliminate as much of the error as possible.
Precision sensors tend to be more costly than generic sensors, but the higher price typically brings with it a variety of techniques within the sensor design that improve its measurement quality. These techniques include features such as compensation for temperature variation and precision factory calibration.
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