[Answer] Are Smart Sensors Necessarily Better Than Traditional Sensors?

[Answer] Are Smart Sensors Necessarily Better Than Traditional Sensors?

A smart transmitter can traditionally be regarded as an extension of a sensor, and with the continuous development of information technology, it has become increasingly integrated into the sensor itself.

Computers can directly receive only digital signals. Therefore, for a computer to perceive external signals, it needs a set of peripheral devices. These include sensors that collect external electrical and mechanical signals such as pressure and temperature; transmitters that convert signals gathered by sensors—often non-electrical quantities or signals that are not convenient for direct computer use—into standard signals (generally either 0–5V voltage signals or 4–20mA current signals); and data acquisition cards that sample these analog voltage or current signals and convert them into digital signals. After collection, conversion, and sampling, the signals enter the computer and become useful information that can be analyzed and utilized.

With the development of information and computer technologies—especially advances in the Internet of Things, 4G, and 5G—more and more functions of sensors, transmitters, and even parts of data acquisition cards have become integrated. At the point of data collection, distributed microprocessors can locally complete the tasks of collection, conversion, and sampling, and then transmit the processed digital signals directly to computers through different communication methods. In the past, achieving this kind of setup was often prohibitively expensive. It is precisely the innovation in microprocessors, IoT, and communication technologies that has made such distributed data acquisition services possible.

This lower-cost, distributed collection and control technology can replace manual labor in a great deal of equipment monitoring and data acquisition work. It provides the foundation for the application of big data and artificial intelligence technologies, and thus serves as a key underpinning of the new industrial revolution.