What is data acquisition

Data acquisition, or DAQ as it is often referred, is the process of digitizing data from the world around us so it can be displayed, analyzed, and stored in a computer.
A simple example is the process of measuring the temperature in a room as a digital value using a sensor such as:

1. a thermocouple

Often data acquisition is used to measure the different parameters that need to be monitored in manufacturing processes, or they may be used for monitoring a large number of sensors used for geological monitoring, or fr any application where very many sensors need to be monitored in a central location or computer.

Data acquisition is the process of sampling and recording of real world signals.
To record a real world signal in a computer memory, the signal must first be converted to a compatible digital format.
Sampling, conversion, filtering, amplification, processing, and recording are the basic elements of data acquisition.