An operational amplifier can be used to provide the following signal conditioning:
The latter is most useful for calibrating a transducer's output signal.
The dynamic range of a signal from an input transducer may be too large to process through the DAQ system (eg. the ADC is often the limiting factor). One can use a linear amplifier and choose to overflow or reduce the overall gain. The latter approach will cause a loss in precision. Another approach is to use a nonlinear amplifier, such as one with a logarithmic gain, .