PC-controlled in-vehicle data collection

The use of personal computers (PCs) in mobile instrumentation systems has many important advantages. In addition to the external sensors and channel electronics, a typical data collection system, comprises the PC, a housing containing a number of plug-in signal conditioning modules, digitising circuitry and a large RAM for data storage. With the advent of these systems, in-vehicle hardware has become smaller, more flexible and easier to use while the data sets produced can be used directly by a wide range of CAF (computer aided engineering) main-frame applications.