The Undergraduate Electrical Engineering Laboratory is the primary teaching lab serving the University of Pennsylvania Moore School of Electrical and Systems Engineering. For most engineering students, it is their first exposure to a laboratory environment and the instruments which they will use in conducting experiments and later, in developing independent senior design projects. The laboratory consists of twenty four stations, each fully equipped with state-of-the-art general purpose instrumentation. Included in the basic instrumentation package are :
- HP 54600B: 100 MHz Digital Oscilloscope w/Math and GPIB Function Module
- HP 33120A: 15 MHz Function/Arbitrary Waveform Generator (GPIB)
- HP 34401A: Digital Multimeters (GPIB)
- HP 3631A: Programmable Multiple Output Power Supplies (GPIB)
- Counters
- A data acquisition board (daq) installed in PCs to be used for measurement and testing. LabVIEW is used to acquire data from the daq boards
Other common instruments such as RLC meters, spectrum analyzers and curve tracers are available during lab hours.
Additionally, each station is provided with a Pentium class PC with operating Windows 95. All instruments configured for use with the General Purpose Interface Board (GPIB) are linked to the PC for instrument control and data collection. Also supporting the instrumentation is the HP Benchlink Suite, a PC communications software package for acquiring and sending graphical and numeric data from a variety of Hewlett-Packard (HP) instruments.
Design oriented software support is available through two application programs - LabVIEW and Electronics Workbench.
LabVIEW is an acronym for Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench. This program, developed by National Instruments Corporation, employs a unique object oriented graphical programming technique. It has gained prominence in many industrial and research laboratories to perform scientific computation, process control, and test and measurement functions. Analog and digital input /output signals are acquired through a PC I/O data acquisition board.
Electronics Workbench, developed by Interactive Image Technologies Ltd., is a Spice based circuit simulation program. It permits users to schematically construct analog, digital, or mixed technology circuits using an extensive component library, and to test circuit behavior using a variety of test instruments. These include an oscilloscope, a function generator, meters, a Bode plotter, and a logic generator. The circuit schematic diagram and test data can be captured for hard copy output.
While the stations provide basic essential test and measurement equipment, the laboratory also maintains a range of specialized instruments (such as Gauss meters, digitally synthesized RF generators, logic analyzers, standing wave analyzers, etc.) which are available for use in advanced student design projects.
Laboratory Inventory
The laboratory carries a full line of standard passive electronic parts such as resistors, capacitors, and inductors, and an extensive stock of semiconductor components and both analog and digital integrated circuits. Selected stocked items also include electro-optical and electro-mechanical items, and non-linear elements (thermistors and varactors) for use in independent student projects.
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