Aims

The aims of the course are to:

• introduce students to state-of-the-art practice in electronic instrumentation systems, including the design of sensor/transducer elements for physical measureands, their respective interface electronics and precision measurement techniques.

Objectives

As specific objectives, by the end of the course students should be able to:

• design circuits to interface to simple temperature and strain measurement devices.
• demonstrate a knowledge of frequency sources and measurement circuits.
• measure high currents using 4 terminal devices and transformers.
• describe how micromachined silicon sensors are made, their operation and merits.
• describe a range of ultrasonic transducers, their applications and associated electronics.
• understand the operation of electromagnetic sensors for flux, current and position sensing.
• design and analyse sensor circuits and estimate signal to noise ratios.
• design an appropriate interface circuit for a sensor with given characteristics.
• produce an outline design of an instrumentation system to monitor a range of physical parameters including pressure, temperature, flow, position and velocity.

Content

Temperature & Strain Sensors and Interface Electronics (3L, Dr P A Robertson)

• Description of thermocouples, thermistors and strain gauges and associated electronics.
• Drift, noise and bandwidth considerations, signal to noise ratio improvement.

Precision Measurements (2L, Dr P A Robertson)

• Voltage measurements: thermal emfs, guarding, shielding. Precision ADC methods
• Time and frequency measurements: stable frequency sources, timer-counter techniques
• Current measurements: current transformers, 4-terminal measurements of high current

Electromagnetic devices (4L, Dr P A Robertson)

• Selected revision of electromagnetic theory and its application to electronic sensors.
• Flux gate, inductive and Hall effect magnetic devices and interface electronics.
• Synchronous detection method applied to fluxgate sensor.
• Laser range finder and velocity sensing

Microfabricated sensors (3L, Dr P A Robertson)

• Overview of silicon micromachining techniques and their application in accelerometers, gyroscopes, automotive air-bag sensors and pressure transducers. Physical priciples of operation and related signal processing electronics.

Ultrasonic transducers (3L, Dr P A Robertson)

• Description of piezo-electric devices, theory and application in practical sensor designs.
• Case studies of the Polaroid range finder, Doppler motion detector and an electronic gas meter.
• Electronic circuits for driving transducers and signal detection methods.

Practical Demonstration Lecture (1L, Dr P A Robertson)

• Evaluation of micromachined accelerometers and gyroscopes.
• Flux-gate magnetometer using synchronous detection
• Ultrasonic motion and distance sensing.

This syllabus contributes to the following areas of the UK-SPEC standard:

Toggle display of UK-SPEC areas.

 
Last modified: 31/05/2017 10:00