Signal conditioning
Conditioning can include amplification, attenuation, linearization, excitation, isolation and filtering. The objective is to present the converter or input system with a signal it can measure reliably without changing the information of interest.
Sampling rate
A sampled system observes a continuous signal at discrete times. The required sampling rate depends on the fastest signal content that must be preserved, not simply on how many records the database can store.
Aliasing
Signal components above the useful sampling bandwidth can appear as misleading lower-frequency content after sampling. Anti-alias filtering and suitable sampling strategy help prevent that effect.
Analog-to-digital conversion
ADC resolution determines the number of digital levels available, but effective measurement performance also depends on noise, reference stability, front-end design and calibration. Bit count alone is not an accuracy specification.
Time synchronization
When comparing events across instruments or systems, timestamp quality matters. Millisecond precision in a database is not meaningful if the source clocks are not synchronized to the required level.