Notes on Measurements and their Errors

Every measurement requires an instrument as a physical medium in order to determine its value. Therefore, it is important that the operator knows the operational principle, the function and the limit of his instrument. 1.0 Definitions There are different factors that might affect the accurate representation of your measurement. Accuracy: This is the correctness of an instrument in showing a standard reference value. Precision: This is the fitness of an instrument upon which the measurement can be made and relied. Sensitivity: This is the ratio between the variation (or change) of the value indicated by the instrument and the variation of the magnitude actually measured1. Resolution: This is the smallest increment of the measured quantity that can cause a change to the instrument reading. Error: Deviations from a standard value.
We shall discuss the first 2 and the last factors in more detail as follows. 2.0 Accuracy and Precision

The accuracy of a measurement specifies the difference between the measured and the true value. Deviation from the true value is an indication of how accurately a reading has been made. The precision of a measurement specifies the repeatability of a set of readings, with each reading made independently using the same instrument. An estimate of precision is determined by the deviation of a reading from the average of all the readings. Indeed, different factors, such as temperature, previous conditions (hypothesis), and electromagnetic interference, can influence the accuracy of instrument readings but do not, in general, influence the precision of an instrument. Note that although precision is a necessary condition for accuracy, an instrument can be accurate without being precise. 2.1 Significant Digits The number of significant digits of a result shows the precision of the measurement. For example, if a resistance is specified as of 63.0 , it means that its value is closer to 63.0 than to 63.1 or to 62.9 . Therefore, we say that its value is expressed with 3 significant digits. The more significant digits the device provides the greater the precision of the instrument. However, the number of significant digits need not be as large as the number of digits in the measurement because it all depends on whether the last few significant digits make sense. If we measure a value of 100,000 for a resistance, but we are only sure for the 3 first digits, then it is better to express the value as a power of 10, i.e., 100 103 or 100 k. By showing only 3 significant digits, we indicate the value is closer to 100 k than to 101 k or 99 k . The sensitivity of a voltmeter is measured by /V which can be found from the specification of the equipment. Then the internal resistance can be determined from the range of voltage setting.
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Example 1:

Obtain the equivalent resistance of the following resistances connected in series: R1 = 18.7 and R2 = 3.624

Each resistance could have been measured by a different instrument of different precision (or accuracy), or by a different range of settings on the same instrument. Suppose the first resistance is known only with a precision of a tenth of an Ohm. Although the equivalent total resistance is 22.324 , the significant digits after the first decimal digit should be dropped, and the result should be rounded up to the next tenth of an Ohm, i.e. 22.3 . In summary, the result of an addition or subtraction cannot be more precise than the least precise term in its absolute error value. Example 2: If a current of 3.18A is measured through a resistance of 35.68 . What is the voltage drop across this resistance? According to Ohm's law we have V = 3.18A 35.68 = 113.4624V. However, since the value of the current is known only with a precision of 3 significant digits, the result must be written V = 113V. The multiplication (or division) can increase the number of significant digits very fast. However we only keep as many significant digits as the least precise term in the final product ( or the quotient).

3.0 Types of Errors It is impossible to perform a measurement without introducing errors. Therefore it is important to know their sources of errors. Usually we do not know the exact error introduced by every element but we can evaluate a result by mentioning the error in the worst case, or provide an interval within which we can find the true value with a very high probability. There are different types of errors. a) Systematic Errors Making measurement with the instruments generally modifies the phenomenon in observation due to the interaction between the instrument and the measured objects. Therefore we would measure a slightly different value. The systematic error can generally be corrected at least approximately if we know the effect of disturbances caused by instruments. b) Instrumental Errors An instrumental error generally consists of the precision error (friction, heating etc.) and the accuracy error (bad and old calibration etc.). In general, the instrumental error of an analog instrument is uniform throughout the whole scale. c) Reading (Human) Errors This error is a function of various factors such as the observer's skill and the quality of the scale when using a parallactic mirror. For instance, if we can read the scale of Fig. 3 with a precision of a quarter division, then we are making a reading error of 500 0.25/25 = 5V for an instrument range setting of 500 V.

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d) Limiting Error The limiting error of a device is the error guaranteed by its manufacturer. For example, a resistor manufacturer would give a value of R 10%, meaning that it guarantees the nominal resistance would fall within an interval of (0.9R, 1.1R). The class of an instrument and the error relative to the reading in a digital instrument are some other examples. Obviously, limiting error is closely related to error types (b) and (c) above. 4.0 Inaccuracy Due to Device Loading The inaccuracy arising from device loading is an example of Systematic Error. A voltmeter is always connected in parallel with the element across which we want to measure the voltage drop. The connection changes the circuit because the voltmeter now provides another path for current flow. This interaction between the circuit and the voltmeter constitutes one type of loading effect on which the sensitivity of the voltmeter would depend.

Figure 1: Loading Effect Analysis Let us consider the circuit in Fig.1 where an external voltage source of E = 150V is applied to two resistors in series. We want to investigate what happen to the voltage drop Vx across the resistance, Rx = 50 k, when two voltmeters, one having a sensitivity of S1 = 1 k/V, and the other having a sensitivity of S2 = 20 kV, are used to measure Vx. We shall first determine the reading of each instrument and their errors relative to the voltage drop when the circuit is undisturbed (i.e., no loading effect). By a voltage divider equation, this undisturbed voltage is

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Next, we can determine the internal resistance of each device assuming a setting with full scale deflection is chosen. Then, from the product of the sensitivity and the full scale deflection (the range) DF, we have for voltmeter i 1 for voltmeter i 2 With the presence of the voltmeter across the $50 k\Omega$ resistor, the new voltage drop, due to loading from voltmeter i, becomes (1) where is the equivalent resistance of the two resistors Rx and Rv in parallel, and . Applying equation (1), we obtain V1 = 25 150/(100+25) =30V and V2 =47.6 150/(100+47.6) = 48.4V which are different from the original value. Thus, the voltage has changed due to the loading of the voltmeter. The relative error for each voltmeter is

Note that this example also shows that a voltmeter can be precise but results if its sensitivity is not high.

it can give false

4.1 Correcting Measurements Due to Loading Effect Suppose now RX is unknown in the previous example, but the voltmeter reading is known. Then we have to estimate RX by taking into account the loading effect (due to its internal resistance) of the voltmeter. If one knows the internal resistance of the meter RV, one can compensate the systematic error introduced by the instrument by various methods such as the one discussed in the following example. Example 3: A voltmeter having a sensibility of 100/V is connected across RX in the previous example. When E=100 V, we read Va = 4.65 V using a range of 50V. We can rearrange equation (1) to obtain (2) Here we have dropped the subscript i in From the sensitivity of the voltmeter, we obtain RV = 100 50 = 5k using a full-scale setting of 50V. Therefore, we can obtain from eqn.(2)

Note that without compensating for the loading effect of the instrument (i.e., by assuming RV ), one would have , which by rearrangement gives

For Va =4.65V, one obtains RX = 4.88 k instead!

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In summary, when placing a voltmeter in a circuit, we should follow the general rules below: a) Connect the voltmeter in parallel to the circuit to be measured. b) When using a voltmeter with scale selection, use the highest possible scale and increase the sensitivity to obtain a deflection as close as possible to the full scale mark (as this will give minimum relative instrumental error). c) Perform correction in the calculation where possible to compensate for the loading effect from the measurement instruments.

Figure 2: Measuring with both Voltmeter (Vm) and Ammerter (Am) Example 4: Loading Effects in the Direct Current Measurement Lab Suppose we have a voltmeter and an ammeter instead of an ohmmeter for resistance measurement. There are two ways to perform such measurement as shown in Fig. 2. In Fig. 2, we measure the exact voltage drop but a current of V/RV is diverted by the voltmeter Vm. Therefore, the actual current that goes through the resistor is . Carrying out an analysis similar to the previous section, we obtain (3) The relation (3) permits us to correct the systematic errors when we know the internal resistances RA and RV of the devices.

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