Data Acquisition (DAQ)

Data acquisition is the process of measuring physical phenomena such as voltage, current, temperature, vibration or pressure with sensors and converting the signals into digital data that computers can store, display and analyse.

A DAQ system typically comprises sensors or transducers, signal conditioning that amplifies, filters, isolates or excites the signal, an analogue-to-digital converter, and software that configures acquisition, timestamps samples and stores or streams the data. Hardware ranges from plug-in cards and USB modules to modular chassis, wireless sensor nodes and IIoT gateways with built-in I/O. Key specifications include channel count, sampling rate, resolution, accuracy, input ranges and whether channels are sampled simultaneously.

In industry, data acquisition supports test benches, quality inspection, process monitoring, energy measurement and condition monitoring of rotating machines. It differs from PLC I/O mainly in purpose: PLCs sample signals to control equipment within their scan cycle, whereas DAQ systems often capture high-frequency, high-resolution data for analysis, such as vibration waveforms that typical PLC analogue inputs are not designed to sample.

Measurement quality depends on correct sensor selection and installation, grounding and shielding, sampling rates that satisfy the Nyquist criterion, anti-aliasing filtering and calibration traceable to recognised standards. Time synchronisation across channels and devices matters when signals are correlated. Data volumes from high-rate acquisition can be large, so edge processing often extracts features before data is sent upstream.

Key points

Converts sensor signals into digital data for analysis
Typical chain: sensor, signal conditioning, ADC and software
Key specifications: channels, sampling rate, resolution and accuracy
Captures high-rate data that control I/O typically does not
Quality depends on grounding, anti-aliasing and calibration

Where AiVibe comes in

AiAmbA IoT is AiVibe's edge protocol layer: it discovers devices and normalises industrial signals, with supported protocols including Siemens S7, Mitsubishi MC, Delta Modbus, OPC UA and MQTT, and driver availability confirmed per installation. Writes to machines are deny-by-default.

Explore AiVibe’s work in Industrial IoT & Edge →

Data Acquisition (DAQ)

Key points

Where AiVibe comes in

Related terms

Terms that refer to Data Acquisition (DAQ)