Hands-On Industrial Internet of Things

Sensors

As we outlined in the previous chapters, the measuring device is actually made up of two main components:

• The sensor, which transforms the variable to be measured into the type of variable that is required for measurement
• The transducer, which accepts information in the form of a physical or chemical variable and converts it into a variable of a different nature (typically electric)

Very often, the sensor and transducer coincide in the same physical component, and this is why the words sensor and transducer are often used interchangeably to indicate a device that measures a quantity and provides a signal, typically electrical, as an output.

A sensor is based on the identification of a physical law that binds two variables of a different ...