Six commercial bioelectrical impedance analyzers were evaluated to determine their accuracy as impedance meters, their sensitivity to contact impedance, and other operating parameters such as maximum current amplitude and test wave-form. Over a range of impedances that simulate human body impedance, analyzer errors varied from < 1% to nearly 20%. Larger errors were observed when the contact impedance was at the limits of the operating range of the analyzer. Body models, sources of error, and several simple tests that the user can perform are also discussed.

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This paper describes some of the major contributions to metrology and physics made by the NIST Electricity Division, which has existed since 1901. It was one of the six original divisions of the National Bureau of Standards. The Electricity Division provides dc and low-frequency calibrations for industrial, scientific, and research organizations, and conducts research on topics related to electrical metrology and fundamental constants. The early work of the Electricity Division staff included the development of precision standards, such as Rosa and Thomas standard resistors and the ac-dc thermal converter. Research contributions helped define the early international system of measurement units and bring about the transition to absolute units based on fundamental principles and physical and dimensional measurements. NIST research has helped to develop and refine electrical standards using the quantum Hall effect and the Josephson effect, which are both based on quantum physics. Four projects covering a number of voltage and impedance measurements are described in detail. Several other areas of current research at NIST are described, including the use of the Internet for international compatibility in metrology, determination of the fine-structure and Planck constants, and construction of the electronic kilogram.

A joint effort between the U.S. Naval Academy and the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) resulted in the development of a method to characterize the capacitance and dissipation factor of a set of commercial standard four terminal-pair (4TP) capacitors. The method depends on network analyzer impedance measurements at high frequencies (40 MH-200 MHz) and a regression of these measurements down to the frequency range of 10 MHz-1 kHz. This paper provides an analysis of the sensitivity of the regression parameters and the high-frequency impedance measurements.