Study Guide

Objective

After completing the course the student is able to:
•understand the basic specifications of sensors and actuators
•connect different kind of sensors and actuators to a microcontroller
•control DC- motors
•control displays and read switches

Content

•temperature, light, sound sensors etc.
•LCD and seven segment displays
•Dc motors
•Leds and relays

Materials

Recommended learning material will be provided as part of the lecture material. This material is collected from several electronics textbooks, because it is difficult find only one material, which is covering the topic "analog meets digital". Most of electronics textbooks are covering a lot larger range. Labwork and simulation material will be provided and it is more or less custom designed for this course.

All the material and lectures will be in english, but in the laboratory the students will get advice also in finnish.

Lecture material and homeworks will cover topics:
- design and implementation some basic digital circuits
- minimize digital circuits using Boolean algebra and/or karnaugh map.
- Diodes, specially LEDs
- controlling bipolar transistor with a logic gate or Arduino Uno
- controlling bipolar transistor with a logic gate or Arduino Uno

Laboratory Manual will cover in addition to the above:
- how to use an electronics simulator Micro Cap
- how to work with electronic measurement devices in the laboratory
- how to read a data sheet of a component
- how to control an actuator when the current or voltage from Arduino is not eanough.

The book which is covering perhaps most of the topics of this course is "Beginning Sensor Networks with Arduino and Rasberry Pi".

Teaching methods

Lectures will be onsite, if covid-19 is not preventing it. In case of lockdown the lectures will be online. The students will get some homeworks based on those lectures.

After lectures there will be both simulations and labworks related to sensors and actuators. As a simulator we will use Micro Cap 12 which students can download free of charge. In the Laboratory we will use actual sensors and actuators to get a realistic view of problems with real components.

In the laboratory communication in english and in finnish is possible

Exam schedules

There will be no exams so only possibility to retake this course is to enroll the course again next year.

International connections

Lectures are implemented in a more traditional teaching style, although some interactive actions from students are highly recommended. During the simulations and labworks we are applying hands-on learning (also called experiential learning) which allowes those students which are more familiar to this subject to move faster.

Completion alternatives

There are no alternative methods.

Student workload

This is a 5 ct course which means approximately 135h work for an average student. We have only 48 contact hours so the students should do most of the work independently.

Content scheduling

First 8 * 2h Lectures about Fundamentals of Digital and Analog Electronics. Dealing with problems when analog world meets a digital microcontroller and how to control analog actuators with digital microcontroller.

Then 8*4h practical labworks of those topics mentioned above.

This course is closely related to the course programming microcontrollers and we are using the same Arduino Uno in this course. too. We are recommending the students to take both of these courses because they are completing each other. We will pay attention to the fact that it is impossible to solve hardware problems by editing a program.

Microcontroller programming is a pretty good practice for programming in general

Further information

Even though the lectures are quite easy to change as online lectures in case of lockdown, that will be a lot more difficult with practical labworks. In case of lockdown the labs will be changed so that it is possible to complete those otherwise. Last year we were able to reserve 3 labs for this course to make sure that the safety distance requirements were met.

Evaluation scale

H-5

Assessment methods and criteria

When using a modern microcontroller a student finds out quite soon that many problems can not be solved by editing the program. Most analog signals require some form of preparation before they can be digitized. Another problem is the relatively small output power that a microcontroller is able to provide. That means that some additional electronics is needed until the controller is able to control practical actuators.

We start with some very basic lectures about electronics devices because it is necessary to know some facts about those until a student is able to use them effectively.

Assessment will be quite straightforward. The more homeworks and Labworks a student is doing the better grade he/she will get. The amount of work is not though the only criteria, the homeworks and labworks should be done well in order to reach the best grades.

Assessment criteria, fail (0)

A student is not able finish succesfully 40% of the given homeworks and Labworks.

Assessment criteria, satisfactory (1-2)

A student is able finish succesfully 40% - 65% of the given homeworks and Labworks.

Assessment criteria, good (3-4)

A student is able finish succesfully 65% - 90% of the given homeworks and Labworks.

Assessment criteria, excellent (5)

A student is able finish succesfully over 90% of the given homeworks and Labworks. Also the work of a student shows some understanding of results that may look surprising. Most of the textbooks are dealing with ideal models of electronics devices and reality can be a little bit different.

To get the grade 5 the labreports should be clear and easy to read (what was done what was measured). The procedures are clearly decribed step by step and results are analyzed (what we got and what we expected).