Ikumatsu Fujimoto (Editor)
Okuwa Technical Reseach Center, Hanasaki Kazo city, Saitama, Japan

Kunitoshi Nishimura (Editor)
Mizukoshi Keiki Co Ltd., Tokyo, Japan

Series: Manufacturing Technology Research
BISAC: TEC020000

A calibration procedure is generally an operation to determine a relationship between an output and an input of an instrument or an essential value of a measuring object in a measuring system. In other words, the calibration is a comparison of a measuring device against a standard instrument of higher accuracy.

In measuring fields, the calibration is clearly confirmed in the traceability system. The traceability is defined as the property of a result of a measurement whereby it can be related to strictly defined standards, in general nationally or internationally recognized, through an unbroken chain of comparisons. Namely, all calibrations are strictly defined to be performed traceable to a nationally or internationally recognized standard in measuring field.

The term gcalibrationh is used not only in measuring fields but also in many other fields, such as meteorology, chemistry and economics. In these fields the term gcalibrationh is used as an operation to adjust and/or compensate a measuring system, and a method for accurately determining the relational expression between an input/output of an instrument using suitable standards, for example, an appropriate global optimization method. However, compared to the measuring field in these other research areas, the calibration seems to be defined in a less systematic way, possibly due to the different nature of these disciplines.

This volume introduces recent topics where the calibration method is applied in various research fields (metrology, radiology, meteorology, chemistry and economics) to the readers interested in learning about current available calibration procedures. In particular, the topics presented are the primary research on the determination of the relationship between the input and output of an instrument or the essential value of the measuring object, the recent research on the compensation for the difference between the input/output model (calibration model) of the instrument and the measuring value, the autonomous calibration method using an appropriate specimen, and the accurate evaluation of a calibration model by a global optimization method.

In this book, calibration is defined in the above-mentioned broad sense of the term, and the topics for discussion are broad and abundant. The standard of calibration as a method which is confirmed systematically in the measurement field has been developing also in other disciplines. Almost of all research issues may still be present, but constitute promising areas of research. (Imprint: Nova)