This Publicly Available Specification (PAS) is applicable to measurement techniques. It defines rules for the unambiguous designation of different types of measuring instruments and of measuring instrument features.
The scope of this PAS is
(a) the adaptation of the designations of measuring instruments and of measuring instrument features to the state of science;
(b) the designation of measuring instruments and of measuring instrument features by the measuring quantity or by the measuring task instead of the unit;
(c) the avoidance of other secondary components than "...measuring instrument" in compound names at least in the far future in the English language;
(d) the avoidance of other secondary components than those corresponding to "measuring instrument" in compound names in languages other than English.
In view of this, measuring instruments should not be addressed by the unit of the measured quantity but only by the measured quantity or the measuring task itself.
In the compound names of measuring instruments, the use of secondary components ("...gauge", "...meter", "...indicator") other than "...measuring instrument" is inconsistent with the objective of standardization (namely uniformity), especially since the meaning of these secondary components is no more descriptive than that of the standard component or their meaning is already contained in the first element of the compound name (for example, in the case of "water meter").
Therefore, the use of secondary components other than "...measuring instrument" should be avoided in the English language at least in the far future.
In addition, the use of secondary components other than those corresponding to "...measuring instrument" should be avoided in languages other than English.
Finally, the ambiguous component "...sensor" should not be used. In its place, one of the secondary components "...detector", "...transformer", "...transducer", "...measuring instrument" or "...measuring chain" should be used, depending on the task of the functional unit being named. The definitions for detector (detecting device), transformer, and transducer are given in IEC 60050-351.