Automation in the acquisition and treatment of spectroscopic data

The previous section described the reduction of human intervention in the operation of an optical instrument In order to facilitate or make poesible Its functioning. Another aspect of great Interest In this context is the automation of the acquisition and treatment of data from an Instrument based on measurements of an optical nature, understandably the earliest to be developed on account of Its great simplicity. 

The degree of automation of this last stage of the spectroscopic analytical process depends on a variety of factors that can be summarized as follows (a) The characteristics of the spectroscopic technique Involved. Some of them (e.g. modes based on Image detectors [15,16] or Fourier transform spectroscopy [17]) generate a large number of data simultaneously at a high rate. 

Automation In data acquisition and treatment can be aimed at a variety of objectives inherent in the above-mentioned factors. It should be pointed out that physical and physico-chemical kinetic factors play a decisive role in the reduction of human Intervention. The acquisition of data at a high rate imposed by the technique Itself (e.g. picosecond spectroscopy [19]) or by the system Investigated (e.g. meaurements of rates of reactions with half-lives of the order of a few milliseconds by the stopped-flow methodology [20,21]) demand the use of a computerized system without which application of the particular spectroscopic technique or method would not be feasible. On the other hand, the so-called microprocessor-controlled spectroscopy , widely commercialized at present, broadens the scope and facilitates the operator s work by eliminating various sources of error. 

From the point of view of the automation of data acquisition and treatment, spectrometric techniques must be divided Into two large groups according to the manner In which the spectral Information Is generated, which in turn depends on the optical design of the instrument used  

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