Signal conditioning
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Imagine feeding the output of a temperature sensor, which is in millivolts, to an Analog-to-digital converter to be processed. Is it possible for the Analog-to-Digital converter to process such a minute voltage amplitude? The answer is probably no.
Signal conditioning acts as an intermediate stage between the signal to be processed by an ADC and the ADC. Or, in more general terms, it acts as an intermediate stage between a signal and future stages.
Signal conditioning can involve the amplification and attenuation of a signal to "prepare" it for the next stage of processing. "Conditioning" of a signal basically means to manipulate a signal in such a way that it meets the requirements of the next stage for further processing.
Amplification of a signal is the most common manipulation to a signal. In control engineering applications, it is common to have a sensing stage (which consists of a sensor), signal conditioning stage (where usually amplification of the signal is done) and a processing stage (normally carried out by an ADC and a micro-controller).
Operational amplifiers (op-amps) are commonly employed to carry out the amplification of the signal in the signal conditioning stage.
