Week 1
Jan 16 - Reading: We will start with a review/survey of analog and digital electronics and signal processing techniques. Any previous electronic text would likely be a good reference. There is a copy or two of The Art of Electronics, 2nd edition, by Horowitz and Hill in the lab room, along with several other electronics books in the cabinets. Some readings may be available on the course google drive. Basic discussion of passive components (R,L,C, diodes, transformers) will be found in chapter 1 of Horowitz and Hill or in virtually any electronics text. For Friday's lab have the book by Essick 4th ed) available.
Jan 18 - Lab 1: Introduction to LabVIEW We begin with a romp through chapters 1 and 2 of Essick's book Hands-on Introduction to LabVIEW
Week 2
Reading: The op-amp, an essential analog electronics building block is presented in detail in chap 4 of H&H. See also Dunlap for a shorter review. Digital electronics see: H&H chapter 8, or Dunlap.
Jan 25 - Lab 2: More getting up to speed with LabVIEW. We'll draw on chapter 3 of Essick.
Week 3
Week 4 Reading: Digital electronics review in Dunlap, chapter 3; Horowitz and Hill (2nd ed) chapter 8. Data acquisition devices (ADCs, DACs) H&H chapter 9.
Feb 9 - Lab 4: Data acquisition in LabVIEW. Postponed to Feb 15.
Week 5
Modern ADC and DAC data sheets:
Fancy AD7606 ADC system
Simple AD7991 ADC system
AD5628 DAC system
AD9102 Fancy DAC/Waveform generator system
Friday: Feb 22 Get caught up through lab 4!
HW 2 due Friday, March 1.
(soln)
Week 7
Reading: Basic Fourier series background is discussed in the electronics text by Simpson available in the lab. Essick's chapter 12 discusses the use of Fourier transform, particularly in the processing of sampled data collected from an ADC and the fast Fourier transform.
Noise (Johnson, shot, 1/f etc) and signal processing methods can be found in Dunlap (chapter 4, see Google drive) and in Horowitz and Hill (sec 7.11-12 for noise; chapter 15 for processing techniques, 2nd ed in lab)
March 1: Lab 5: Signals and the Frequency Domain
Week 8
Friday March 8: Lab 6 Programmable Instruments
HW 3 due Monday, March 25.
(soln)
Week 9
Reading: Data and uncerttainty analysis: Bevington/Robinson Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences available in the lab room, chapters 1-2 cover basic statistics and important probability distributions; a gentler discussion of the same topics can be found in Taylor's Introduction to Error Analysis, also in the lab room. Chapters 1 and 4 address basic statistical quantities; chapters 5, 10, and 11 deal with normal (or Gaussian), binomial and Poisson probability distributions in turn.
Friday, March 22: Finish through lab 6.
Week 10
Take-home mid-term. Available beginning Tuesday; return in 48 hours, no later than noon, Sunday, March 31. (This is not intended to be a long exam!)
Friday, March 29: Lab 7 Timing and the Speed of Sound (a study in bouncing rods)
Week 11-13
Reading: Bevington chap. 3 and 4 discuss error propagation and estimating errors, and chi-squared basics. Linear curve fitting appears in chapter 6. Taylor's chapter 2 and 3 cover error propagation; curve fitting in chapter 8.
Friday, April 5: Lab 7 continued.
Homework 4 (HW 4) will be due Monday, April 15. (soln)
Friday,April 12: begin final lab project: see here for options.
Week 14-15
Reading: Bevington chap 7 covers polynomial fits; chap. 8 "non-linear" fitting problems.
Continue final project. Report format
Homework 5 (HW 5) will be due Friday May 3. (soln)
Final exam - take home. Pick up when ready, turn in within 24 hours.