Electronics and Control Lab

Overview:

The Electronics and Control laboratory is a cutting-edge facility for practical experiments, allowing students to design, build, test, and measure electronic devices and circuits, alongside control systems for robotics and industrial automation.

The teaching in this lab covers all aspects of electrical, electronic, and control systems hardware and software, from large-scale DC and AC motors, generators, and drive units to precision miniaturised surface mount oscillators.

The Electronics and Control laboratory features high-specification equipment from National Instruments (NI), Quanser, and Keysight, and provides experiments ranging from simple soldering to signal analysis, and from transistors to transformers. Students also gain access to real-world applications, such as Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems and industry standard Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs).

The lab setup includes the innovative and adaptive NI Educational Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Suite (ELVIS). This suite can be used across the entire multi-disciplinary engineering curriculum, and is experienced by engineering students from across the faculty. It allows a hands-on laboratory experience, not just in typical areas of analogue and digital electronics, but also control systems and communications technologies.

Students will learn:

• How to design electronic circuits, construct them by soldering or using prototyping board, then test their own creations.
• How to design and build robotic systems such as manipulation arms or buggies, with suitable control algorithms and testing
• How to use industry standard test and measurement equipment for both electronics and high power electrical systems.
• How to implement feedback control systems and measure their effects, in a range of applications.
• How to integrate physical devices and systems with programmable electronic components, such as microcontrollers, FPGAs and logic controllers.

What equipment is in this lab?

72 workbenches, each including:

• NI ELVIS multi-instrument education platform 
• Oscilloscope
• Waveform Generator
• Bench Multimeter
• DC Power Supply
• High power isolated AC supply
• Quanser servo motor system
• Soldering Iron

The lab also has shared equipment for use in specific sessions:

• Digilent Nexys 4
• FPGA
• NI myDAQ data acquisition
• Keysight Network Analyser
• Keysight LCR Meter
• Source Measurement Unit
• Advanced Solder Rework Station
• Voltera PCB Printer
• PCB Drills
• DC and 3 phase AC machine sets
• PLC manufacturing factory model

Links to other Departments:

• Electronic and Electrical Engineering
• Automatic Control and Systems Engineering
• Aerospace Engineering
• Bioengineering
• General Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering

Which staff are in this lab?

• Dr Raja Toqeer, Senior University Teacher
• Ben Taylor, University Teacher
• Dr Tom Howard, University Teacher
• Dr Panos Lazari, University Teaching Associate
• Jon Fullwood, Technical Team Leader
• Marcus Haigh, Teaching Technician
• Cecil Wilkinson, Teaching Technician

Request Use of Equipment:

Please email j.fullwood@sheffield.ac.uk with:

• Your name
• Your degree & year of study
• What equipment you want to use and why

Please allow 3-5 working days for a response.