Lab Facilities

Students learn the fundamentals of DC and AC electronics and perform voltage, current and resistance network measurements to understand the theory.

Students use the provided Digilent Analog Discovery USB PC tool, which has a suite of the following tools in Waveforms software: Digital Multimeter, Arbitrary Waveform Generator, Oscilloscope, and Logic State Analyzer. The lab bench also includes a handheld digital multimeter, a resistor decade box, and wire kit to wire up the circuits. The students receive a small kit of various resistors, capacitors, and ICs for their experiments. Students construct various types of circuits and perform voltage, current and resistance network measurements to reinforce theory. The students also solder their components onto PCBs at the end of the semester, thus soldering irons (Weller WES51) are also provided at lab stations.

Students learn the basics of Boolean logic and the building blocks of a 4-bit ALU computer. They build their logic circuits in Quartus software, then run their program on an Altera DE10-lite FPGA development board that is provided in lab. The Digilent Analog Discovery tool is also used by students in this class.

In this course, students explore buck/boost power circuit topologies, analysis, design, and simulation of electronic circuits such as power supplies, and motor drives. Each lab station has the following benchtop equipment: Rigol power supplies, Oscilloscope, Digital Multimeter, and programmable load to test and operate their power circuitry.

The Digital Design course will review basic concepts in digital logic (muxes, decoders, encoders, etc.) and will build upon these concepts to form complex digital circuits consisting of finite state machines, controllers, and data paths. The course provides realistic case studies to apply concepts learned during lectures. All concepts discussed in lectures are implemented in VHDL. The Altera DE10-lite FPGA development board is provided to all students in the lab.

Students learn the elements of microprocessor-based systems, hardware interfacing and software design for their application to explore the numerous functions and abilities of microprocessors. Students Use Quartus software to program and are expected to also use the logic analyzer capabilities of their personal Digalent Analog Discovery boards.

The Communications course allows students the opportunity to explore a wide range of both digital and analog communication circuits. Students receive a USB Software-Defined Radio (SDR) to learn theory of communications and applications to radio, television, telephone, satellite, cellular telephone spread spectrum and computer communication systems.

In E-Circuits 1 students learn about analog electronics: various semiconductor technologies and how they apply to diodes and different transistor types, related circuit instabilities, and operational amplifier circuits. They build their circuits on protoboards to physically operate and test. The lab has Rigol oscilloscopes, power supplies, and function generators, which facilitate the study and analysis of both analog and digital electronics.

This lab has five industrial grade LabVolt Mechanical Training Systems allowing students to explore the principals of electric machines, transformers, and magnetic circuits. Additionally, students see the effects that different loads (resistive, capacitive, and inductive) have on a multi-phase power system. Each station also comes equipped with an Agilent mixed signal oscilloscope, power supply, function generator, and digital multimeter.

The Controls course investigates fundamental concepts of control related to unstable closed-loop systems and applies them to improving the performance of dynamical systems. Each lab station has a Quanser ball and beam rotary motion platform to perform their experiments.

In Design 1, students learn the basics of integrating multiple circuits into one design, and eventually designing that onto their own printed circuit board using Altium Designer software. They will solder all their components onto their designed PCB’s and get it to function as designed. Students receive a substantial parts kit to perform the progression of the different design modules. Each lab station has an Oscilloscope, digital multimeter, function generator, power supply, and soldering iron for students to use in building and testing their circuits.

The Design 2 course utilizes everything that the students have learned in their academic career, with the guidance of the professors and instructors to develop a working electronic product prototype. This course is one of the capstones of the Electrical and Computer Engineering students’ education; students must utilize analog and digital design as well as software development to successfully develop their projects.

Students get the benefit of experienced consultation from our professors and lab engineers for design advice, power efficiencies, and analog and digital circuit troubleshooting. Additionally, successful students learn how to protect their product and intellectual property and develop a business plan for its manufacture.

The lab room has a variety of previously listed oscilloscopes, function generators, DMMs, and power supplies to accommodate the vast variety of student projects created here. We also have network analyzers, and inductance analyzers, and various other prototyping tools available.