Aerospace Electronics

Learning Outcomes

Foundations of Electronic Control Systems * Electric field, voltage, current, power, Kirchoff’s laws * Electromagnetics: Lorenz force, Lenz’s law, Faraday’s law * Circuit elements: resistors, inductors, capacitors, ideal voltage and current sources, transformers * DC circuit analysis: circuit simplification, Thevenin theorem, superposition theorem * Time domain analysis of simple circuits * Lab 1: Introduction to Arduino Discrete and Integrated Semiconductors * Diodes: VI characteristic, rectification, clamping * Transistors: BJTs & FETs, VI characteristic, signal amplification, buffers, switching, voltage regulation * Combinational logic: logic gates, truth tables * Sequential logic: synchronous and asynchronous logic, serial communication, pulse width modulation * Lab 2: Control of actuators Operational Amplifiers * Characteristics of ideal and non-ideal op-amps * Common feedback topologies * AC circuit analysis: small signal model, phasors, Bode plots * Design of first order low/high/band pass filters * Closed loop control * Lab 3: Tone detector * Lab 4: Light source tracker Sensors and Actuators * Transducer characteristics (frequency response); Analogue to Digital conversion; Sampling; Aliasing * Common types of sensors, their principle of operation, and selection and design of instrumentation * Actuators, their theory of operation, and the selection, design and application circuits to drive them * Lab 5: Sensors and transducers Mini Group Design Project Design of a responsive control system, featuring elements of * Sensors and transducers * Signal conditioning * Signal processing following a pre-defined logic * Actuators * Closed loop control

There are four topics, delivered over weeks 1-10, leading up to two weeks to complete a mini group design project (weeks 11 and 12). Lectures (2 hours per week) deliver engineering science content. This content is supplemented with online resources, including problem sheets, worked examples, quizzes and a discussion board to provide feedback on content and problem solving. Associated laboratory practicals (2 hours every 2 weeks) apply new concepts synchronised with lectures to build and test different electronic systems. This practical element is supplemented with online materials to prepare you for the lab exercises ahead of time. These require application of engineering science to design and predict the performance of electronic circuits, which will be built and tested during the laboratory sessions. During these sessions, demonstrators provide practical guidance on constructing and debugging the circuits. The laboratory exercises build towards a final group design project, where you will build an electronic system which must sense, process and respond to its environment to complete an aerospace-inspired mission. You will learn through problem based learning, working in small groups to using systems engineering to design, build and test subsystems and integrate these to complete the mission.