Introduction General concepts of measuring equipment

General information

The rapid development of various areas of radio equipment and radio engineering in general, places increasingly high demands on metrological support and the level of electrical and radio measurements (more simply, radio measurements, measurements). In this regard, the theory and practice of radio measurements are typical:

• expanding the limits of measured values ​​and improving the accuracy of their measurements;

• development of new measurement methods and instruments using the latest physical principles of action;

• introduction of automated measuring systems with high accuracy, speed and reliability.

The technique of radio measurements is peculiar to a number of features:

1) A very wide range of measured values, for example, in power from fractions of microwatts to hundreds of kilowatts, in voltage from fractions of microvolts to hundreds of thousands of volts, in frequency from 10-2 to 3 · 1012 Hz and more, in magnitude of resistance - from 10 -6 to 1012 ohms and so on.

2) Since the main object of study in radio circuits is an electrical signal — it is the carrier of the information used, observations and studies of the form and spectrum of electrical oscillations are necessary, as well as the generation of copies and samples. This is the reason for the widespread use in the practice of radio measurements of instruments for monitoring and recording oscillations (oscillographs, spectrum analyzers) and sources of electrical oscillations (measuring generators);

3) Due to the complexity of the structure of modern radio engineering devices and a large number of various parameters describing their work, a variety of measurements is characteristic even in one experiment, the need for their complex implementation, speed, accuracy, and therefore, automation of measurements.

The main task is to learn how to correctly and justifiably choose a method and measuring instruments that provide the best reliability of this measurement, process the readings taking into account the unavoidable errors and determine the value of the measured value closest to the true one.

In order to successfully cope with the numerous and diverse problems of electrical and radio measurements, students need to master a number of general principles for solving them, define a unified scientific and legislative framework that ensures in practice high quality measurements, regardless of where and for what purpose they are performed. Such a base is metrology (from the Greek. "Metron" - measure, "logos" - teaching)

Metrology - the science of measurements, methods and means of ensuring their unity and how to achieve the required accuracy.