Power Isolation

Voltage, current, temperature, pressure, strain, and flow measurements are an integral part of industrial and process control applications. Often these applications involve environments with hazardous voltages, transient signals, common-mode voltages, and fluctuating ground potentials capable of damaging measurement systems and ruining measurement accuracy. To overcome these challenges, measurement systems designed for industrial applications make use of electrical isolation.

Isolation electrically separates the sensor signals, which can be exposed to hazardous voltages, from the measurement system's low-voltage backplane. Isolation offers many benefits including:

• Protection for expensive equipment, the user, and data from transient voltages
• Improved noise immunity
• Ground loop removal
• Increased common-mode voltage rejection

Why to Implement Power Isolation

Consider isolation for measurement systems that involve any of the following:

• Vicinity to hazardous voltages
• Industrial environments with possibility of transient voltages
• Environments with common-mode voltage or fluctuating ground potentials
• Electrically noisy environments such as those with industrial motors
• Transient sensitive applications where it is imperative to prevent voltage spikes from being transmitted through the measurement system