Spreadsheet DAQ

Data acquisition is the sampling of the real world to generate data that can be manipulated by a computer. Also called DAQ, data acquisition typically involves acquisition of signals and waveforms and processing the signals to obtain desired information. The components of data acquisition systems include appropriate sensors that convert physical phenomena to an electrical signal, then conditioning the electrical signal which can then be acquired by data acquisition hardware.

Acquired data are displayed, analyzed, and stored on a computer, either using general purpose programming languages such as Visual BASIC, C, Python or Java. Specialized programming languages used for data acquisition include LabVIEW, HP VEE and MATLAB which provides a programming language, and also built-in graphical tools and libraries for data acquisition and analysis

This site is dedicated to using the various spreadsheet programs that are available to perform the analysis and visualisation. Advantages of the spreadsheet over programming languages are

• The tool is familiar
• Analysis can be performed without programming. However, programming is available if required
• It is available at no cost or no incremental cost. Openoffice Calc and Google Spreadsheets are free to use. In the case of Excel, it is likely that you already have the software on your computer.
• Cloud based spreadsheets are built for collaboration.