An oscilloscope is a key measurement device used to observe time-varying voltage signals across various fields such as engineering and medicine. There are three main types: analog oscilloscopes, digital oscilloscopes, and USB oscilloscopes, each with different functionalities and capabilities. Essential characteristics include bandwidth, which indicates the maximum measurable frequency, and sampling rate, determining the speed of data acquisition.

1. An introduction to oscilloscopes
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2. What is an oscilloscope ?
¤ Oscilloscope are devices made to observe time-varying
voltage signals
¤ They can be considered as the most important
measurement devices in any lab
¤ They are used in many domains : engineering, but also
medicine, and science in general

3. Basics of measurement
¤ There are different analog quantities we can measure
with an oscilloscope :
¤ Information about the voltage trace : mean value,
amplitude, maximum value …
¤ Information about time : frequency of the signal, some
oscilloscopes can also directly compute a Fourier transform
of the signal
¤ Some digital oscilloscopes can also analyze digital
signals, like decode USB frames

4. Different kind of oscilloscopes
¤ Analog oscilloscopes
¤ The oldest type of oscilloscopes
¤ Consist of a cathode ray tube and amplifiers
¤ They operate by projecting the voltage trace to a screen via
an entirely analog process

5. Different kind of oscilloscopes
¤ Digital oscilloscopes
¤ Employ Analog-to-Digital Converters to sample the signal
and display it on a LCD screen
¤ Have usually more functions than the analog oscilloscopes,
like storage, automatic measurements, and computation of
simple function on the acquired signals (FFT …)

6. Different kind of oscilloscopes
¤ USB oscilloscopes
¤ These are similar to the digital oscilloscopes, but rely on your
computer to operate it & display the data
¤ They are usually much cheaper and more portable than
digital oscilloscopes
¤ However, usually they have lower performances compared
to a typical digital oscilloscope

7. Main characteristics
¤ As they are the most commonly used today, especially
for portable oscilloscopes, we will talk about some
characteristics of digital oscilloscopes
¤ Bandwidth : it is a measure of the maximum frequency
that can be measured and displayed with the
oscilloscope. It is usually the frequency at which the
attenuation reach -3 dB
¤ Sampling rate : the maximum number of measurement
points per second that the oscilloscope can acquire

8. Operating your oscilloscope
¤ There are basically two main parameters to set when
using an oscilloscope : the voltage axis, and the time axis
¤ Setting the voltage axis is done via the volts/div knob. You
will usually set it to display the voltage trace on the whole
screen of the oscilloscope.

9. Operating your oscilloscope
¤ The other knob to set is the time/div knob. If you are
observing a periodic signal, use it to set the time axis so
that you see some periods of the signal on the screen.

10. Thank you !
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