Auto-zero/Auto-calibration
From Wikimization
Motivation
In instrumentation, both in a supporting role and as a prime objective, measurements are taken that are subject to systematic errors. Routes to minimizing the effects of these errors are
- Spend more money on the hardware. This is valid but hits areas of diminishing returns; the price rises disproportionately with respect to increased accuracy.
- Apparently in the industrial processing industry various measurement points are implemented and regressed to find "subspaces" that the process has to be operating on. Due to lack of experience I (RR) will not be covering that here; although others are welcome too (and replace this statement). This is apparently called "data reconciliation".
- Calibrations are done and incorporated into the instrument. This might be by analog adjustments or customization via writeable stores for software to use.
- Runtime Auto-calibrations are done at regular intervals. These are done at a variety of time intervals: every .01 seconds to 30 minutes. I can speak to these most directly; but I consider the "Calibrations" to be a special case.
Mathematical Formulation
Let
- a vector of some environmental or control variables that need to be estimated
- a vector of calibration points
- be the estimate of
- a vector of nominal values of uncertain parameters affecting the measurement
- Assumed constant or designed in
- be the errors in
- Assumed to vary but constant in the intervals between calibrations and real measurements
- be the results of a measurement processes attempting to measure
- where might be additive, multiplicative, or some other form.
- the reading values at the calibration points
- Subsequently will be assumed fixed for the problem realm; and dropped from notation
- be estimates of derived from
- be a quality measure of resulting estimation; for example
- Where is allowed to vary over a domain for fixed
- The example is oversimplified as will be demonstrated below.
Then the problem can be formulated as:
- Given
- Find a formula or process to select so as to minimize
- The reason for the process term is that many correction schemes are feedback controlled and internally never compute ; although it might be necessary in design or analysis.