Campbell Scientific CR9000X Measurement and Control System - Manual (Page 421)

Appendix E. Glossary
E.1 Terms
AC see VAC.
A/D analog-to-digital conversion. The process that translates analog voltage
levels to digital values.
accuracy a measure of the correctness of a measurement. See also Section 0
Accuracy, Precision, and Resolution.
Amperes (Amps) base unit for electric current. Used to quantify the capacity
of a power source or the requirements of a power consuming device.
analog data presented as continuously variable electrical signals.
ASCII / ANSI abbreviation for American Standard Code for Information
Interchange / American National Standards Institute. An encoding
scheme in which numbers from 0-127 (ASCII) or 0-255 (ANSI) are used
to represent pre-defined alphanumeric characters. Each number is usually
stored and transmitted as 8 binary digits (8 bits), resulting in 1 byte of
storage per character of text.
asynchronous the transmission of data between a transmitting and a receiving
device occurs as a series of zeros and ones. For the data to be "read"
correctly, the receiving device must begin reading at the proper point in
the series. In asynchronous communication, this coordination is
accomplished by having each character surrounded by one or more start
and stop bits which designate the beginning and ending points of the
information (see Synchronous).
baud rate the speed of transmission of information across a serial interface,
expressed in units of bits per second. For example, 9600 baud refers to
bits being transmitted (or received) from one piece of equipment to
another at a rate of 9600 bits per second. Thus, a 7 bit ASCII character
plus parity bit plus 1 stop bit (total 9 bits) would be transmitted in 9/9600
sec. = .94 ms or about 1000 characters/sec. When communicating via a
serial interface, the baud rate settings of two pieces of equipment must
match each other.
Beacon a signal broadcasted to other devices in a PakBus®® network to
identify “neighbor” devices. A beacon in a PakBus® network ensures
that all devices in the network are aware of other devices that are viable.
If configured to do so, a clock set command may be transmitted with the
beacon. This function can be used to synchronize the clocks of devices
within the PakBus® network. See also PakBus® and Neighbor Device.
binary describes data represented by a series of zeros and ones. Also
describes the state of a switch, either being on or off.
Boolean name given a function, the result of which is either true or false
E-1