An opportunity to enhance the value of metrological traceability in digital systems

Abstract

A metrologically traceable measurement is related to its expressed units by a chain of calibrations, each contributing to the measurement uncertainty. At present, however, traceable measurements report the combined measurement uncertainty but give no details about the different contributions to that uncertainty. The contributions from various measurement errors could be passed along the traceability chain using standard methods of uncertainty propagation. This information would enable more accurate applications of traceable measurements and, ultimately, better decisions could be made. The highly-automated measuring and control systems currently envisaged could use this approach to extract more value from traceable measurements.