3D motion analysis

Real world examples:

For a measurement of countermovement jumps the following settings are given:
Amplifier range: +/- 10 V, maximum force that can be measured: 5000 N
A/D converter with 12 bit resolution:
5000 N/2048 bit = 2.4 N per bit
This means that forces in the range of +/- 5000 N can be measured with a resolution of 2.4 N.
For gait analysis, where the amplifier can be configured for maximum forces of 2000 N the resolution is 0.98 N.
In comparison to that a 16 bit A/D converter has a resolution of 0.15 and 0.06 N per bit, respectively.

Real world examples:

A force platform (8 channels) is measured with 1000 Hz (=one sample per millisecond).
Using a 200 kS/s A/D converter the first sample of the first channel is measured at 0.000 ms, the second channel at 0.005 ms, the third at 0.010 ms and the eighth at 0.035 ms.
The second sample of the eight channels will be measured at 1.000 ms, 1.005 ms, 1.035 ms, respectively.
The small time delay between channels is acceptable for most applications.
When using more channels and higher sampling frequencies the problem gets bigger (32 channels, 5000 Hz, with 200 kS/s):
First sample: first channel at 0.000 ms, 32nd channel at 0.155 ms
Second sample: first channel at 0.200 ms, 32nd channel at 0.355 ms
As you can easily see the last channel of the first sample is in terms of time quite close to the first channel of the second sample.