Electrical Engineering Major

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ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING (El Engr)
Offered by the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering.

El Engr 231. Electrical Circuits and Systems I. An introduction to circuit analysis and system design. Topics include: circuit models and simulations of electrical devices and systems; nodal and mesh analysis; Thévenin and Norton equivalent circuits; dependent sources; operational amplifier circuits; transient and frequency response of first-order circuits; sinusoidal steady-state response; and military and civilian applications.

El Engr 281. Introductory Digital Systems. An introduction to the fundamental principles of logic design. Includes Boolean algebra, combinational and sequential logic networks with basic design and analysis techniques, very high speed design languages (VHDL), field programmable gate assemblies (FPGA), and an introduction to digital processing systems. Laboratory projects include the analysis and design of digital computer architecture.

El Engr 315. Principles of Air Force Electronic Systems. An introduction to electrical and computer engineering principles applied to Air Force electronic systems through signal analysis and electronic system design and evaluation. Topics include signal representation, the realization of digital and analog systems using electronic functions, and their application to Air Force systems.

El Engr 321. Electronics I. An introduction to semiconductor electronics. Covers qualitative and quantitative analysis of semiconductor devices with emphasis on the diode and transistor. Includes modeling, analysis and design of related circuits, including combinational and sequential digital logic.

El Engr 322. Electronics II. A continuation of El Engr 321. Extends basic semiconductor concepts to the bipolar junction transistor. Extends modeling and circuit analysis processes to circuits containing multiple transistors including differential/operational/power amplifiers, frequency response, feedback and stability.

El Engr 332. Electrical Circuits and Systems II. A continuation of circuit analysis and system design. Topics include: transient response of second-order circuits; mutual inductance; Laplace transform techniques in circuit analysis; analog filter design; and two-port networks.

El Engr 333. Continuous-Time Signals and Linear Systems. An introduction to analog signal processing by linear, time-invariant systems. Topics include signal characterization, convolution, Fourier analysis methods and state variable techniques.

El Engr 343. Electromagnetics. The study of Maxwell’s Equations, plane waves, transmission, and radiating systems. Topics include wave propagation, transmission lines, waveguides and antennas.

El Engr 360. Instrumentation Systems. Principles and design of modern data acquisition and instrumentation systems for non-electrical engineering majors. Includes measurement techniques, transducers, analog and digital data processing systems and displays.

El Engr 382. Microcomputer Programming. Provides a broad-base understanding of microcontroller systems. The microcontroller principles presented provide a foundation that can be used in other courses to simplify (in some cases, substantially) projects. Includes design, application, interfacing, assembly language and microcontroller hardware. Laboratory projects emphasize applications and interfacing.

El Engr 383. Microcomputer System Design I. A course in the design of digital systems using microprocessors. Topics include structured system design, microprocessor instruction sets, support software and system timing. Also covered are input/output, peripherals and hardware-software interfacing techniques.

El Engr 387. Introduction to Robotic Systems. Provides fundamental knowledge on robotic systems. The course topics include kinematics, dynamics, motion control, controller design and trajectory planning of robot manipulators. Cadets will also be introduced to basic computer vision techniques.

El Engr 434. Discrete-Time Signals and Systems. An introduction to digital signal processing. Topics include: classical solutions to linear difference equations, the z-transform, digital filter design, quantization effects of Analog-to-Digital and Digital-to-Analog converters, frequency analysis of decimation and interpolation, discrete Fourier transform and the fast Fourier transform.

El Engr 444. Applied Field Theory. Topics include antennas, fiber optics, scattering, Fourier optics, radio wave propagation, radar cross-section and numerical methods. The analysis and design of practical systems are emphasized. A few lessons are reserved for current state-of-the-art topics, such as stealth technology, adaptive antennas and holography.

El Engr 447. Communications Systems. An introduction to modern electrical communications. The performance of various modulation and detection methods for both analog and digital systems are analyzed. Coverage includes theory of operation, effects of random noise, bandwidth and other communication design constraints.

El Engr 448. Wireless Communications. A follow-on course to El Engr 447 that applies the knowledge of random processes and spectral analysis to the performance of wireless communication corrupted by noise. Advanced topics that vary from semester to semester include satellite communications, image processing, data communications, and fiber optics.

El Engr 463. Capstone Design Project I. First course in the two-semester capstone design sequence for Electrical Engineering majors. Presents contemporary methods essential to designing, planning and execution of complex electronic and computer engineering projects. Includes instruction in contemporary Air Force project management methods and tools, organization of requirements, software and hardware specification and design, hardware fabrication, quality assurance, and testing. Planning and prototyping the semester-long design is completed in this course.

El Engr 464. Capstone Design Project II. Second course in the two-semester project design sequence for Electrical and Computer Engineering majors. Continues study of the system software and hardware lifecycle. Emphasis is placed on system design, appropriate implementation in hardware and software, analysis, testing and evaluation, quality assurance, and documentation. Course uses a design project to emphasize Air Force application.

El Engr 472. Instrumentation System Fundamentals. Introduction to instrumentation components. Analysis and design of advanced operational amplifier circuits, including Schmitt-trigger, waveform generators, instrumentation amplifiers and active filters. Discussion and practical design of transducer circuits to instrument various processes.

El Engr 473. Introduction to CMOS VLSI Circuit Design. Introduction to design of Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) circuits in silicon Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Course includes discussion of CMOS fabrication technology, combinational and sequential logic structures, analog circuit structures, computer-aided layout and simulation techniques, load/timing analysis and integrated systems design techniques/considerations.

El Engr 484. Microcomputer System Design II. This course is the culmination of the Computer Systems Area of Study design sequence using microprocessors. Students investigate advanced peripheral interfacing techniques, advanced memory systems, advanced bus features, coprocessors, serial communications, cross-compilers and Digital-to-Analog conversion. This is accomplished through a series of laboratory design exercises.

El Engr 485. Computer Architecture. This final course in the computer systems area of study quantitatively examines trade-offs in the design of high-performance computer systems. Topics include price/performance, instruction sets, hardwired control versus microprogramming, memory hierarchy, cache memory, virtual memory, pipelining, Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC), input/output and parallel processing. Final project will examine state-of-the-art processors and computers.

El Engr 495. Special Topics. Selected topics in electrical engineering. Typical subjects include audio power amplifier design, laser optics and weapons, advanced signal and image processing, and advanced electronics circuits.

El Engr 499. Independent Study. Individual study and research in an engineering design topic. Approved by the department head.