Data Acquisition System

Data acquisition is the process of measuring an electrical or physical phenomenon such as load, pressure, torque, voltage, current, temperature, pressure, or sound with a computer. A Data acquisition system consists of sensors, measurement hardware, and a computer with programmable software. Compared to traditional measurement systems, PC-based Data acquisition systems exploit the processing power, productivity, display, and connectivity capabilities of industry-standard computers providing a more powerful, flexible, and cost-effective measurement solution.
A Data Acquisition System is comprised of three parts; an I/O sub-system, a host computer and the controlling software. However, some systems, such as the Power DNA Cube running a standalone Linux application combine the I/O sub-system and the host CPU in the same package. These systems are often referred to as embedded DAQ systems.