A data acquisition system in which several sample and hold circuits are used to sample a number of analog channels at the same instant. One sample and hold per analog channel is required.

Signal to Noise And Distortion ratio. It is the ratio of the root-mean-square (RMS) signal to RMS noise, including harmonic distortion for sine wave input signals.

If you specify an accelerometer as the sensor type, single integration results in velocity (the engineering units change and are denoted with “~”).

The non-physical parts of a computer system that includes computer programs such as the operating system, high-level languages, applications programs, and so on.

The spectral density describes how the variance of time-series data is distributed with frequency.

When the signal being analyzed is not periodic, energy from a signal at a specified frequency can leak into nearby spectral bins causing spectral amplitude inaccuracies; this is called spectral leakage. Applying a windowing function controls, but doesn’t completely eliminate, the error by multiplying each data frame by a suitable time-domain weighting window.

The frequency spectrum is a representation of a time-domain signal in the frequency domain. It is generated by performing an FFT on the signal. For example, if you select Spectrum for the Spectrum Function setting when configuring the FFT parameters, the spectrum is computed by taking the magnitude of each frequency component in the FFT and plotting the results. For example, if measuring acceleration with these settings, the units are in g. Typically, Spectrum is best for narrowband, deterministic signals.

A transient disturbance of an electrical circuit due to a momentary change in voltage. For example, load variations on the ac power line.

The ability of an instrument or sensor to maintain a consistent output when a constant input is applied.

A bracket or clamp used to secure a cable so that it does not become disconnected accidentally or apply stress at the point of connection to the system.