difference between sensor and transducer?

Question

in instrumentation field

Answer 1

They're essentially the same.

If there is a small difference it is that the sensor is the device that converts a physical quantity to another (usually electric, like a microphone convert sound to voltage). The transducer might be a device that contains a sensor and further converts the electricity to a more useful and interpretable value (e.g. a microphone might produce a tiny voltage and there may be an amplifier to make it a larger signal, making it less sensitive to noise and so forth).

ANyway, I hear the two used interchangeably all the time.

Answer 2

A microphone or a photocell is a sensor. A loudspeaker or a LED or a piezoelectric transducer that sends the ultrasonic noise to the sea floor in an echo sounder, they're all transducers. Roughly speaking a sensor is the opposite of a transducer.

Answer 3

A senor is used to send (or transmit ) a signal to another instrument, A transducer converts one form of energy into another, such as electric into pneumatic.

Answer 4

Sensor is a device which sense variable needed to measure in the medium and converts in to electrical signal.

some times sensing medium can have only two logic staes in such cases we use a device like proximity switch.

sensor eg., --> Piezo crystal,LDR,LVDT..

Transducer is a device which converts a control signal from a control system in to mechanical actions.

resulting in the control action in real environment.

e.g.,--> Actuators,servomotrs,stepper motors..,

Answer 5

Um...I can help you LOADS in that field, just send me a mail if u want some information. I do Sound Engineering. [e-mail]