Average

The Average I/O averages successive measurements and outputs the average of these measurements. The Average I/O object can work in two different modes: Running average (default) and average-of-n.

Averaging is useful in situations when the signal of interest is periodic and (random) noise is present on top of it. By taking multiple measurements of the signal and averaging them, the signal to noise ratio will increase.

Properties and actions

To control the behavior of the Average I/O, several properties are available. These can be accessed through a popup menu which is shown when the I/O is right clicked in the Object Tree. The properties can also be accessed through its settings window which is shown when the I/O is double clicked in the Object Tree. To open the Object tree, click the Show object tree button.

Average control

By default, the settings window only shows the most used settings. When Advanced is ticked, the extended window with all settings is shown. See also the program settings.

Count

The Count property determines how many measurements are averaged. Several standard values are available, as well as a user defined setting.

Running average

When the property Running average is switched on, the Average I/O will continuously replace a part of its memory by the newly arriving measurement, effectively "forgetting" the oldest measurement. When switched off, the Average I/O operates in average-of-n mode. The average will then automatically be cleared after n measurements.

Stop after count

When the Stop after count option is checked, the Average I/O will stop collecting data when Averaging count measurements have been collected.

Status

The Status indicator shows how far the Average I/O is in its averaging process.

Only expand

When Only expand is set, the data size of the Average I/O gets higher when the source's data size grows, but does not shrink when the source's data does. This can be useful when averaging data of a source with varying data size.