Instrumentation and measurement methods

The latest publications in this offer are:

• April 10, 2026

  R291

  A Bayesian Approach to Assessing Measurement Uncertainty

  Measurement uncertainty evaluation is essential to scientific and industrial activities, and to trade, where it enables, among other things, the comparison of measurement results with each other or with a specification. The "Guide to the Evaluation and Expression of Uncertainty" (GUM) aims to propose harmonized practices for this evaluation.This article presents the Bayesian approach and the main Bayesian techniques used in metrology. It illustrates how this statistical framework makes it possible to address more complex situations, such as the estimation of calibration curves with uncertainties on both axes, or the use of prior information on the measurand, thereby opening up new perspectives.

• December 10, 2024

  R62

  Organization of metrology in France. Cofrac

  On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the accreditation of calibration laboratories on July 1, 2023 and the 30th anniversary of Cofrac on April 29, 2024, this article specifies the role of Cofrac within the organization of metrology in France. Created in 1994, Cofrac's mission is to demonstrate, in France and internationally, that the organizations it accredits are competent and impartial. Decree No. 2008-1401 makes Cofrac the sole national accreditation body.Accreditation concerns conformity assessment bodies including laboratories, inspection bodies and certification bodies. To date, 300 calibration laboratories are accredited.

• February 10, 2023

  R727

  Evaluating artificial intelligence

  Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly growing, questioning all audiences, individual, professional, academic. Rational and shared principles and practices to measure the performance and limits of intelligent systems have to be set up.A methodical approach that complies with the rules of metrology allows us to draw the broad outlines: metrics to carry out quantitative and repeatable performance measurements, physical and virtual testing environments to perform reproducible experiments that are representative of the real operating conditions of the AI being evaluated, and organizational tools (benchmarking, challenges, competitions) that meet the needs of the entire ecosystem.

• August 18, 2022

  R260 Review

  Analysis of variance and regression. Design of experiments

• August 18, 2022

  R240 Review

  Statistical observation

• August 18, 2022

  R250 Review

  Estimators and hypothesis testing

• March 15, 2022

  R290 Review

  Statistical process control

• March 15, 2022

  R401 Review

  Sensors

  This article lists the design principles of sensors of physical or mechanical quantities. It solely presents the most commonly used devises such as, for instance sensors of torque, force , weight, pressure, proximity, displacement, temperature and gas. This list is thus not exhaustive. This article finishes by presenting the new generation of sensors and in particular the smart sensors which integrate an internal calculation devise, a signal conditioning system, a communication interface and chemical sensors.

• March 15, 2022

  R400 Review

  Sensors

  The first element in the chain of measurements, the sensor is meant to emit an electrical signal proportional to the physical quantity to be measured. Where mechanical variables require a prior transformation in order to become an electrical quantity the sensor includes a primary element and a sensing element. This article presents the definitions and the terminology of metrology as well as the terms related to the functioning conditions of a sensor. It then details the detection principles used to design sensors: variation in resistance, capacity, frequency, luminous flux, etc.

• July 21, 2021

  R272 Review

  Statistical software

  Given the growing scale of the use of statistics and the diversity of lT tools at the disposal of the Engineer, it seemed necessary to present in this article the most used functionalities in statistics in terms of key software features available, these being either ljcensed or free. Descriptive statistics, tests, variance analysis, regression analysis or principal components analysis are presented asexamples processed using Excel and XLSTAT software, SAS, J'Pin and R.

Access to a comprehensive database of articles

Rely on the ultimate technical and scientific knowledge database