Instrumentation and sensors [ LELEC2811 ]

Moodle

> https://moodleucl.uclouvain.be/course/view.php?id=3733

Our world is more and more digital with the increasing presence of information and electronic systems in industry, transportation, health cares and everyday's life. Many of the digital applications in these fields require the automatic acquisition of quantities from the physical world. In this course, we study the instrumentation chain and the sensors capable to perform this acquisition of physical quantities to translate them into analog electrical signals and then digital data.

In this course, we will present different types of sensors used for the transduction of several physical values, e.g., occupancy, mechanical, acoustic, optical, bio/chemical, ' and the  associated electronic circuits for signal conditioning and data transmission. We will highlight the figures of merit of the instrumentation chain and all sources of errrors along it

With respect to the AA referring system defined for the Master in Electrical Engineering, the course contributes to the development, mastery and assessment of the following skills :

AA 1 (1.1, 1.2, 1.3), AA 2 (2.1, 2.2), AA 3 (3.1, 3.3), AA 4 (4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4), AA 5 (5.3, 5.4, 5.5)

b. After this curriculum, the student will be able to :

• Describe the operation principles of various classes of sensors
• Select sensors for a given application
• Size, realise and characterise a complete instrumentation chain
• Understand and use datasheets
• Present a written report of the results of group project

Individual oral exam with preparation time and group reports on the problems asked during the year.

The lecture is following the problem-based learning. A restructuration lecture follows each problem in order to guide the learning process.

The lecture is looking at various basic disciplines that are targeted to sensors and their associated instrumentation.

• Fundamental metrology and systems characterisation methods to quantitatively evaluate the performances of a measurement chain.
• Principles ruling the conversion from primary physical values to electrical values.
• Analogic signal conditioning (instrumentation amplifiers, ').
• Numeric signal conditioning (converters, filters, ').
• The application of processors in instrumentation.

Some frequent application in the industrial field will be considered : measure of displacement, speed, force, acceleration, pressure, temperature, '

Supports

• Syllabus and slides available on Moodle
• Reference book available at the Library of Science and Technology : J. Fraden, Handbook of Modern Sensors: Physics, Designs, and Applications. 4th ed. Springer, 2010. ISBN: 9781441964656

Knowledge of circuits and electrical measurements is a necessary prerequisite (for example LELEC1370 or alike). Knowledge of the operation principles of basic electronics components (diodes, transistors) is an advantage (for example LELEC1530 or alike).