Measurement and Instrumentation

This course offers a broad introduction to measurement and instrumentation systems. The basic elements of such systems will be presented: transducers, amplifiers, filters and analog-to-digital converters. The different sources of error (noise, interference, offset, non-linearity, aliasing) that limit the performance of such systems will be discussed. Methods of analytically determining the corresponding detection limits will be presented, and in particular how errors can be referred to the input of a system and represented by equivalent voltage/current sources.

Several techniques for mitigating measurement errors will be discussed in detail e.g. the use of feedback, filtering, synchronous modulation, chopping, auto-zeroing, dynamic element matching.

The course will conclude with a measurement laboratory. Students may choose ONE of the following topics: Device characterization, RF measurements or LF measurements.

The final grade will be built up as follows:

Written exam = 60%

Homework = 20%

Practical assignment = 20%

OR

Written exam = 80%

Practical assignment = 20%

whichever of the two is higher.

The written exam will take place on campus. It is an open-book exam with open questions. The type of questions will be similar to previous years (see example exams on Brightspace). The exam will be graded on a scale of 1-10.

The homework grade is the average of the grades obtained for the 4 homework assignments, each of which will be graded on a scale of 1-10. The homework grade is valid for one year, i.e. the above calculation applies for the exam and the resit

The grade of the practical assignment is based on the lab report submitted at the end of the course. This will be graded on a scale of 1-10.

If you re-take the course next year, your homework grade from this year will not carry over to next year. In that case, you can choose to do the homework of that year (and we encourage you to do so). Your lab grade does carry over to next year.

Disclaimer: information may change depending on unforeseen circumstances or measures (see: TER Art 29, sub 4)