International DAQ Survey Highlights Equipment Trends

The survey generated a strong response with nearly 600 replies from professional engineers and showed that the needs of DAQ users worldwide are very similar making it important to provide a global service. Ease of use and performance, precision and quality were considered the most important features in a DAQ system while multi-functional capability was also thought to be important.

This aligns closely with HBM’s philosophy of integrating TEDS (Transducer Electronic Data Sheet) and APM (Advanced Plug & Measure) into its DAQ equipment.

There was a clear preference to use a PC for data acquisition and configuration. These results are in line with the need for greater flexibility in data acquisition since the PC is a more mobile, yet robust, option for gathering data and subsequent analysis.

Engineers showed a clear preference for USB and Ethernet as interfaces although the interest in both digital I/O and analog output were very close behind while there was strong demand for a mixture of centralized and distributed units for multipoint measurements. This meets with HBM’s aims of providing equipment that can easily be integrated into all systems.

There is a constant increase in the number of channels although this does not imply any move towards lower accuracy: ever higher standards of accuracy are demanded. HBM says, “We’re very impressed by the initial results since they show some clear trends as well as some interesting regional differences impacting on the future development of data acquisition and analysis equipment.”