Objectives

Course Objectives For ELEC 105 - Introduction to Electrical Engineeering

Given a background in:

Physics (high school at least, concurrent Physics II desirable)
Calculus (Minimum Calculus I, Concurrent Calculus II highly desirable)

Students - at the conclusion of the course - should be able to do the following:

Be able to measure common physical quantities using common sensors,
Be able to obtain voltage signals and process voltage signals using computer interfaces
Be able to record measured data in computer files using standard programming methods,
Be able to analyze data in analysis programs.

Voltage and Current

Concepts covered:

What are voltage and current?
How do you measure voltage and current?
AC measurements, including waveshape and frequency.

Outcome:

Given a simple circuit, be able to measure voltage and current anywhere in the circuit using manual instruments including DVMs, Data Acquisition Units and Oscilloscopes.

Signals

Concepts covered:

Voltage signals
Representation of voltage signals - including frequency representations
Measurement of signal paramters
Introduction to signal processing

Outcome:

Given a signal, be able to measure significant signal parameters.
Given a signal, be able to process the signal to reduce noise.

Electrical Devices

Concepts covered:

Resistance, Capacitance, Inductance, Diodes and Operational Amplifiers.
Voltage-Current relationships
Use in simple circuits

Outcome:

Given a requirement for simple signal processing, be able to design, construct and test Voltage Dividers, Simple R-C filters, Operational Amplifier Inverting Amplifiers, Isolation Amplifiers, Summers and Simple Filters.

Sensors/Transducers

Concepts covered:

Introduction to a few sensors (transducers) – Temperature sensors (Thermocouples, Thermistors, LM35s), Strain Gages, Pressure Sensors, Flow Sensors, Light Sensors.
Simple Sensor Dynamics (Time constant behavior).

Outcome:

Given a measurement requirement, be able to use the appropriate sensor to do the measurement, including measuring the sensor output and doing the appropriate conversions (electrical and calculation conversions).

Computer Controlled Measurements

Concepts covered:

IEEE-488 Measurements using pre-packaged programs.
A/D and D/A cards (Keithley board)
Sound card I/O.

Outcome:

To gain a “comfort level” using computer controlled instruments.

Using Programming Methods for Computer Controlled Measurements

Concepts covered:

Simple LabView (or Matlab, or Visual Basic. Probably not C/C++) for measurements.
IEEE-488 commands and measurements
A/D and D/A card measurements.
Data formats and data manipulation (IEEE standard data representations for integers and floating point numbers, string representations and conversion between those two formats)

Outcomes:

Be able to take measurements from one or more transducers and display the data from within a computer program.
Be able to perform arithmetic computations on acquired data within a program.

Introductory Signal Processing

Concepts covered:

Introductory Signal Processing
Frequency Response - First Order Filters

Outcomes

Be able to implement a first order Resistor-capacitor filter to reduce noise in sensor signals.

Data Storage and Analysis

Concepts covered:

Writing data to a file from within a program using a format compatible with spreadsheets and analysis programs.

Outcomes:

Be able to write data to a file in an appropriate format
Be able to load acquired data into an analysis program and perform typical analysis operations.

Control

Concepts covered:

Output in IEEE-488 instruments and D/As
Introduction to simple computer control systems

Outcome:

Be able to implement a simple control program (ON-OFF)

Data Transmission

Concepts covered:

Simple network connections (TCP-IP in LabView)

Outcome:

Be able to transmit and display acquired data over the internet.