Portale di Ateneo - En.Unibs.it

INSTRUMENTATION ELECTRONICS, SENSORS AND MICROSYSTEMS
The first part of the course deals with techniques and circuits for the extraction and processing of measurement information in electronic instrumentation, with special focus on sensor interfacing. The two combined aspects of signal amplification, plus mitigation of disturbing effects due to noise, interference and influencing quantities are jointly considered, with the general goal of maximizing signal-to-noise ratio.
The second part of the course deals with sensors and microsystems. The main aspects treated are transduction effects, fabrication technologies and interfacing to signal-conditioning electronic circuits.
Techniques, development methods and devices are presented and discussed with reference to up-to-date applications and recent research trends, such as micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), energy-harvesting for powering wireless autonomous sensors, wearable systems for monitoring physiological parameters in medical applications.

Course syllabus

1. General concepts on information and signals, noise, interference and influencing quantities.

2. Amplification of DC and AC signal sources, electronic noise in circuits, electromagnetic interference (EMI) and mitigation in cabled connections.

3. Techniques for information extraction and signal-to-noise ratio maximization: modulation and demodulation, phase-sensitive detection, lock-in amplifiers, filtering, averaging, correlation.

4. Introduction on sensors, actuators and transduction systems.

5. Microfabrication technologies and MEMS.

6. Sensor and microsystem design.

7. Sensor systems and applications.

8. Project-based laboratory activity.