An investigation into a dual-detector LCR component meter

The work presented here investigates proposals for a new generation LCR component meter which takes advantage of advancing technology through the environment of Virtual-Instrumentation, itself a relatively new concept. The new instrument, based jointly upon time and frequency domain analysis, employs a Phase-Sensitive-Detector and the Discrete-Fourier-Transform as a pair of complimentary detectors to realise a single and multi-frequency testing strategy. The unknown component is excited with either a single sine-wave or broadband signal comprised of a number of harmonically related sinusoids. An object-oriented software design was used to implement a graphical-user-interface for the control of the instrument and results obtained from it.