Digital measurement systems, standards and future developments

Measurement systems (MS) are combinations of realtime control systems and systens for data transmission. Their features relevant to the progress of the microelectronics are defined and explained. Typical configurations following the existing standards are analysed, especially their specific advantages and deficiences. Industrial “de-facto” standards are included as well as some recent developments. A survey is given about proposed future systems and possible improvements, compared with technological possibilities and anticipated demands of distributed control, as exchange of slow software procedures by hardware-features, distribution of all status information throughout the system, facilities for surveying all operations, testings, partial switching off and on for graceful degradation, communication between simultaneously running tasks. The advantages of distributed control (increased efficiency, functional security, etc.) are utilized only if the transmission path of the MS is occupied for single operations only and controllers of different tasks can access it alternatingly. Possible improvements are: Command source identification, broadcast operations for requests and status, geometric addressing, operation made signals for static switching of device interfaces or mailbox inputs to controllers.