# Inverting Sensor Transfer Functions?

When you see software packages that read in data from sensing equipment, does the software do something to inverse the transfer function?

Correct me if I'm wrong in my understanding, but this is how I see it:

The sensor takes in input signal $$x(t)$$ and the sensor has some frequency response governed by the Transfer function of the sensor which alters the signal $$x(t)$$ to some deformed signal $$y(t)$$. So if anybody wanted to know about the actual signal would they inverse the Transfer function? And is this on top of other calibration values? Gain etc..?

• you need to read the documentation provided with the software to know what it does. a commercial product will have applications and sales engineers to help with specific issues. Free software typically has web groups where users share their expertise. your question is too broad to meaningfully answer. – user28715 Sep 10 '19 at 16:43
• Can you please tell me why I need to be more specific, are there conditions where you do/don't inverse the transfer function? Unfortunately there is no software for me to check the documentation, im trying to write my own, and the sensor is an accelerometer if this helps – Stephen Jackson Sep 10 '19 at 17:35
• what software packages are we supposed to have seen is one way to make your question more specific – user28715 Sep 10 '19 at 23:58

What's though true is that in general you cannot completely eliminate the effect of your sensing equipment. By the way it filters the "true" signal $$x(t)$$, some of its components might be filtered out and be lost completely. As a simple example: practically all real systems have some sort of low-pass characteristic so that very high frequency components will not do anything to it and thus never show up in $$y(t)$$. If you excite a 1 kHz low-pass system with a 1 GHz input signal, you cannot hope to get it back by inverting the low-pass characteristic, you'd have to divide by zero essentially.