Field Programmable Analog Array (FPAA) are reconfigurable analog modules introduced on the electronic market in the last decade. Their working and, in particular, their programmability is achieved owing to the use of switched capacitors technology. At least in principle, they seem to be a very attractive and powerful tool to design analog circuits whose parameters have to be tuned to signal variations as in carrying out sensor conditioning systems. But, the aim of exploiting their possibilities in the field of metrology requires a complete characterization and performance assessment of the involved building blocks. With this goal, in the paper, the metrological characterization of the most commonly blocks to be used in analog conditioning circuits, such as amplifiers and filters, is performed. These blocks have been characterized in terms of both frequency response and step response and the obtained experimental results have been compared with the ones expected from theoretic analysis. Concluding remarks are then deduced to furnish practical hints in the use of FPAAs in measurement applications.

This paper presents the results of the “Inter-laboratory comparison” in the pressure field. The comparison refers to the manometers with elastic element, in air, in the range (0 … 2.5) bar. The pilot laboratory was National Institute of Metrology, and the participated laboratories were from industry companies. The main goal was to demonstrate the capabilities of the industry laboratories and competence of these laboratories to supply pressure unit.

The complexity of interactions at high-frequencies requires the full range of analytical, numerical and experimental techniques to be employed to get a thorough understanding and quantification of observations. The all too often perceived dichotomy between “theory” and “measurements” is unfortunate and does not help the serious investigator. The paper attempts to show how measurements and numerical simulations in complex systems are complementary approaches and should be used together to enhance understanding.

A new class of auxetic materials, a hexachiral honeycomb structure with good mechanical properties, is investigated through computer simulation and measurement. The electromagnetic properties for shielding applications are taken into account. This new material shows some interesting EMC properties (e.g. -40 dB transmittance @ 2.4GHz) and promises better performance using different insertion techniques.

The authors implemented power measurement methods in non-sinusoidal regime using an original in-time signal processing: the temporal active power formula, applied to a pair of periodic signals representing voltage and current can be applied also to current (as it is) and Hilbert transform of voltage (kept in time domain) to compute the reactive power. The suggested algorithms were oriented towards digital signal acquisition and processing; their efficiency was compared with traditional methods and also with the implementation alternatives. Sampling rate was synchronized with the signal, as most industrial power meters don’t require a time reference (the power values are normalized to the period of the signal). The virtual instruments accomplished are directly applicable in real time monitoring and reactive power compensation for non-sinusoidal regime using recent developments in the technology of capacitors.