| Coating Thickness Measurement with SIDSP®- Technology excellent Interference Immunity Intelligent sensors with integrated digital signal processing are becoming the trend in an increasing number of applications. There are considerable valuable advantages do to the interference immunity resulting in higher repeatability, durability and reliability. And because this technology does not involve higher manufacturing costs, it's merelya matteroftime before "digital" will also dominate in the field of coating thickness measurement. With today's so called "Digital Coating Thickness Testing Gauges" the basic principle ofthe analog technology, based electro-magnetic coating thickness measurement is used which dates back to the 1970s. Though it has been continuously developed and improved over the years, a lot of requirements remain unrealised so far. It is true that analog coating thickness gauges are reliable, but only as long as they are used in disturbance-free conditions. Disturbance-free conditions, however, are the ideal case. In real typical application settings, readings may be disturbed by electromagnetic fields, insufficient filtering of measuring signals, quickvariations in temperature or imprecise linearisation. In addition, precise measurement always requires taking a sufficient number of readings to accurately evaluate the true thickness of the coating, a precondition the user may not always be aware of. The shortcomings are mostly related to the fact that prior analog technology may only be improved by expending disproportional effort. Some ofthe problems cannot be solved at all by using the methods of analog technology. As a matter of fact, an optimal filtering of the measuring signal, for example, is simply not achievable in analog technology with respect to the inappropriate technical expenditure that would be required. Another reason is related to the enormous stability and temperature problems involved. | 
