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System Level Design - Project Summaries
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System Level Design Projects and Labs
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Imagine if, from first day of class, students are challenged to build a simple but complete system using most of the concepts they will learn in the class. Piece by piece they learn about the components they need, design and test them, perhaps good-naturedly competing with their fellow students for the best designs. When they ask if their designs are “good enough”, they are encouraged to check it out for themselves… and predict how it will affect their system in the end.
The following is a listing of all system level design projects implemented in the ECE curricula.
For more information contact:
Cynthia Furse at cfurse@ece.utah.edu
or
Bryan Stenquist at bstenqui@ece.utah.edu
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ECE 1270: Introduction to ECE - Course Projects
ECE 1270: Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering
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Project : Biomedical Sensors
Students will be introduced to a variety of physiological sensors as they build a patient monitoring system. At the conclusion of the course, the students will have built and tested at least three different circuits for measuring vital signs such as respiration rate, blood oxygenation [oximetry, Barker], and heart rate. The projects will be integrated by their common theme, and they will cross disciplinary boundaries with bioengineering. These projects will be expanded in Electronics II. These projects are related to the research of Dr. Christensen and others in Bioengineering [Christensen] and Dr. Cotter [Douglas].
Related Projects: ECE 3110
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ECE 2260: Fundamentals of Electric Circuits - Course Projects
ECE 2260: Fundamentals of Electric Circuits
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Project : Electromagnetic Launcher
In this project, you will construct and test an EM launcher similar in many respects to the coil guns described above; but to avoid the time, expense, and danger involved in constructing a device to launch larger projectiles, yours will be a miniature coil gun consisting of one small coil, and the projectile will be a short (3-4 mm) segment of wire from a standard paper clip. Because the magnetic forces on the projectile would force it to the center of the coil if a steady current were applied, you will need to design a circuit to produce a short current pulse and, to get sufficient force for launching, the current must be high. Therefore you will also design a circuit to discharge a capacitor into a coil to produce a short, high-current pulse. This project is but one example of many ways in which voltage and current pulses are employed in a variety of devices.
Not current NSF project.
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ECE 2280: Fund. of Engineering Electronics - Course Projects
ECE 2280: Fundamentals of Engineering Electronics
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Project : Regulated DC Power Supply
Design a dual rail, regulated, DC power supply to supply enough current to operate an op-amp based microphone and speaker circuit created as part of the second class lab and supported by the concepts of the third lab.
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ECE 3110: Engineering Electronics II - Course Projects
ECE 3110: Engineering Electronics II
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Project: EMG Sensor with Audiovisual output
The goal of this lab is to build an electromyogram (EMG) sensor with a bar-graph LED output and an audio output that both indicate the strength of a muscle contraction. Students start with a redesign of the instrumentation amplifier built in Intro. to ECE, then they rectify and high-pass filter to get a running average of the signal. They also define discrete levels to be uses to design an LED indicator. Finally, the design of a VCO connected to a driver and speaker is used to create the audio component.
Related Projects: ECE 1270
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ECE 3300: Introduction to Electromagnetics - Course Projects
ECE 3300: Introduction to Electromagnetics
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Project: Cardiac Pacemaker Communication System
Students will build and test a wireless communication system for a cardiac pacemaker. A matching network for a monopole antenna will be built. The received power from the transmitting antenna embedded in muscle simulant will be measured. The receiving antenna is attached to an amplifier and splitter that detects if 420 or 460 MHz signals are received.
This project is linked with ECE 3500.
Other related projects: ECE 5320, ECE 5324, ECE 5530
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ECE 3500: Intro. to Signals and Systems - Course Projects
ECE 3500: Introduction to Signals and Systems
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Project: Cardiac Pacemaker Communication System - FSK Transceiver
This is a five week long experiment about frequency and amplitude modulation. Using electronic components, students build a frequency shift keying (FSK) circuit. Both modulator and demodulator modules are constructed and tested. The carrier frequencies used here are 1 kHz and 5 kHz, for representation of logical 0 and 1, respectively. We have purposefully chosen these low frequencies to allow straightforward prototyping in the laboratory using bread boards. The concepts from this experiment are expanded in the EM class where students build the FSK system in the MHz range.
This project is linked with ECE 3300.
Other related projects: ECE 5320, ECE 5324, ECE 5530
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ECE 3510: Intro. to Feedback Systems - Course Projects
ECE 3510: Introduction to Feedback Systems
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Project: Magnetic Levitation Control System
Controls Students build a simple magnetic levitation system, measure its system response, and design a hardware or software control system to allow the user to define the vertical rise and response dynamics of the levitated object. The course also includes a hardware PLL for timing acquisition that will draw a link between ECE3500 and ECE3510
Related Projects: ECE 3500, ECE 5570, ECE 5780
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ECE 5320: Microwave Engineering I - Course Projects
ECE 5320: Microwave Engineering I
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Project: FSK Wireless Local Area Network
Students build an FSK WLAN from microstrip components. This is an adaptation of labs at BYU and USU
Related projects: ECE 3300, ECE 3500, ECE 5324, ECE 5530
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ECE 5324: Antenna Theory and Design - Course Projects
ECE 5324: Antenna theory and design
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Project: Multi Band Patch Antenna Design
The students designed dual-band patch antennas for use for wireless telephone (835 and 1900 MHz) and wireless LAN communications (2.45 and 5.5 GHz). The patch antennas were tested for their performance in our newly renovated anechoic chamber and network analyzer stations.
Related Projects: ECE 3300, ECE 3500, ECE5 320, ECE 5530
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ECE 5530: Digital Signal Processing - Course Projects
ECE 5530: Digital signal processing
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Project: QPSK Communication System
We developed three modules that together allow the students to simulate a complete QPSK system in software. In these modules, the students apply concepts of sampling, filter realizations, filter designs and discrete Fourier transform in their implementations.
Related Projects: ECE 3300, ECE 3500, ECE 5320, ECE 5324
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ECE 5570: Control of Electric Motors - Course Projects
ECE 5570: Control of Electric Motors
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Project: Motor Control System
This course starts with identification and control of DC motors on a prototyping platform. Then the control of stepper and induction motor is presented. Finally the class is completed with a student project for controlling a Brushless DC motor. This course has cross-over with the embedded system courses by providing a platform similar to embedded motor lab.
Related Projects: ECE 3510, ECE 5780
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ECE 5780: Embedded Systems Design - Course Projects
ECE 5780: Embedded Systems Design
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Project: Microcontroller Design
Students designed simple systems using a Motorola HC(S)12 microcontroller and peripheral hardware. Labs included design a keypad interface, a thread scheduler, a simple serial network, pulse generator, DC motor controller that utilizes a 4-bit DAC.
Related Projects: ECE 3510, ECE 5570
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Microsystems - Course Projects
Microsystems
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Project: Nanosensor project
Packaging, system integration and reliability studies are the topics tying together the entire canon of micro, nano, sensor and electronics technology courses. Packaging requires a thorough understanding of system integration and the awareness of system and application/market requirements.
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