Saturday, December 15, 2012

What is Instrumentation?

When you say Instrumentation, for some  not involve in this field of industry doesn't really know what is instrumentation meant to be? 

According to Instrumentation and Systems Automation Society or commonly known as  ISA defined, Instrumentation is a collection of instruments and their application for the purpose of  observation,measurement and control.

An instrument  is a device that measures or manipulates variables such as flow, temperature, pressure, or level , include other devices which can be simple as valves and transmitters, and  as complex as analyzers. Instrument often comprise control system of varied processes, the control of these processes is one of the main branches of the applied instrumentation. 


  • Process - Any operation or sequence of operations involving a change of energy, state,composition, dimension, or other properties that could be defined with respect to a datum.
  • The sensor is also known as a detector or primary element. That a part of a loop or instrument that first senses the value of a process variable, and that assumes a corresponding, predetermined, and intelligible state or output. The sensor could be separate from or integral with one other purposeful element of a loop. 
  • Controller -  A device having an output that varies to regulate a controlled variable in a specified manner. A controller may be a self-contained analog or digital instrument, or it may be the equivalent of such an instrument in a shared-control system.
  • Final control element - the device that directly controls the value of the manipulated variable of a control loop. Often the final control element is a control valve.