Rapid Prototyping of analogue DC Sensor Systems

• read an electrical circuit diagram, identify the types of electrical components in the circuit, and recognize input and output terminals, and current and voltage sources.
• explain and apply Ohm’s law and Kirchhoff’s laws to establish equations for voltages and currents in both passive and active electrical circuits.
• reduce circuits with resistors in series and parallel connections, including application of the Delta-Wye transformation, recognize voltage dividers and current dividers in a circuit and use these to streamline circuit analysis.
• establish nodal and mesh equations for passive and active circuits with both dependent and independent voltage and current sources, and using super-nodes and super-loops.
• use principles of linearity and superposition in linear circuits with multiple current and voltage sources and reduce electrical circuits to equivalent Thevenin and Norton models.
• design, construct, and validate sensor systems including sensor and operational amplifier circuit, including inverting, non-inverting, and summing amplifier circuits and circuits with offset adjustment.
• write programs in Python to solve linear systems of equations and to compute voltages, currents, resistance and power dissipation in electrical circuits.
• operate multimeters for measuring resistance and voltages and for validating the quality of solder joints. Operate function generator and oscilloscope and use these to validate constructed circuits.
• solder components on a printed circuit board according to a circuit diagram.
• validate the assembly of components on a printed circuit board and search for short circuits and poor/missing connections.
• correct assembly errors by desoldering misplaced components and soldering new components.
• comply with the rules for participating in laboratory exercises, including showing consideration for fellow students, avoiding damaging equipment, maintaining the toolbox in its original condition, and cleaning up the workplace after completing the exercise.

Sensor technologies: Thermistors and light dependent resistors.
Passive electrical circuits: Ohm’s law, Kirchhoff’s laws for electrical circuits, series and parallel components, voltage divider, current divider, nodal analysis, mesh analysis, dependent and independent sources, linearity and superposition, Thevenin and Norton equivalent models.
Active electrical circuits: the ideal operational amplifier, voltage followers, inverting and non-inverting amplifier circuits, summing amplifiers and amplifiers with offset adjustment.
Tools for circuit analysis: Self-written Python programs.
Tools for circuit construction: Breadboard, veroboard, multimeter, function generators, oscilloscopes, and solder equipment.

Lectures, exercises, problem-quizzes, lab-quizzes, lab assignments.

This course is a mandatory course for the bachelor programme Biomedical Engineering.

Minimum: 10, Maximum: 120.

Please be aware that this course has a minimum requirement for the number of participants needed, in order for it to be held. If these requirements are not met, then the course will not be held. Furthermore, there is a limited number of seats available. If there are too many applicants, a pool will be created for the remainder of the qualified applicants, and they will be selected at random. You will be informed 8 days before the start of the course, whether you have been allocated a spot.