CODE | ESE3207 | ||||||||||||
TITLE | Instrumentation and Data Acquisition Systems 1 | ||||||||||||
UM LEVEL | 03 - Years 2, 3, 4 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||||||||
ECTS CREDITS | 5 | ||||||||||||
DEPARTMENT | Electronic Systems Engineering | ||||||||||||
DESCRIPTION | 1) Introduction to Instrumentation: Instrumentation building blocks and fundamental design considerations. 2) Sensors and transducer technologies: Sensing properties, principle of operation and electrical characteristics and performance of various types of sensors – pressure, temperature, humidity, displacement, linear and angular velocity, acceleration, force, magnetic field, MEMS. 3) Analogue interfacing circuitry and linearization techniques. Error models: offset, linearity and gain errors 4) Static and dynamic errors, the concept of calibration. 5) Filter types and characteristics, design of high order Chebyshev, Butterworth, Bessel, Elliptic types using tables. 6) Passive LCR filter theory. Introduction to Opamp Active Filters: Sallen-Key (SK) low-pass, high-pass, band-pass and notch filters. 7) Interfacing of intelligent sensors/devices: Serial vs Parallel communication. On-board busses: SPI, I2C, PCIe, SATA. Off-board RS232, RS422, RS485, 4/20mA current loops. Noise rejection considerations: voltage levels, single vs differential signaling, screening etc 8) Introduction to industry standard data acquisition and test systems – selection of DAQ with respect to analogue/digital IO, counters/timers and triggering. 9) Introduction to National Instruments LabVIEW graphical programing for data acquisition - Creating Simple VIs, type definitions, implementing and documenting code, loops, plotting data, decisions making, arrays, clusters, file I/O, user interfaces etc. Study-unit Aims: This unit aims at providing the student with an understanding of the underlying physical properties of various sensor technologies and the electronic circuitry (signal conditioning and filtering) required for the interfacing of such sensors to a data acquisition system (microcontroller or DAQ based). This unit also addresses interfacing of intelligent sensors over various digital data busses. Students following this module are also given an introduction to National Instrument’s LabVIEW for data acquisition and processing. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: • Describe the fundamental building blocks of an instrumentation and data acquisition system; • Describe sensor technologies and select appropriate sensors for particular applications; • Describe interfacing circuitry for various sensors with considerations for linearity and calibration; • Describe the operation of passive and active filters and design filters with the required performance; • Describe various serial/parallel digital busses for on-board communication of intelligent devices. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: • Select sensors for a particular sensing application; • Design, build and test circuitry for sensor interfacing; • Design, build and test passive/active filter circuits; • Design, build, test and calibrate a simple instrumentation system interfaced to a computer via LabVIEW. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: 1) Horowitz, P. and Hill, W., The Art of Electronics. Cambridge University Press. 2) Williams, A. and Taylor, F., Electronic Filter Design Handbook, McGraw-Hill Handbooks, (Hardback) 3) Whitaker, J., The Electronics Handbook, 2005 Additional text: 4) Mihura, B., LabVIEW for Data Acquisition, Prentice Hall. 5) Travis, J., LabVIEW for Everyone: Graphical Programming Made Easy and Fun (3rd Edition), Prentice Hall |
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ADDITIONAL NOTES | Pre-requisite Study-units: ESE3101 Please note that a pass in the Practical and the Examination components is obligatory for an overall pass mark to be awarded. |
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STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture and Practical | ||||||||||||
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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LECTURER/S | Evan Joe Dimech Brian Zammit (Co-ord.) |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |