Texas A&M University Undergraduate Catalog

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Course Descriptions

Department of Electrical Engineering

Professors A. Abur, S. P. Bhattacharyya, J. R. Biard, K. L. Butler-Purry, A. K. Chan, K. Chang, A. Datta, E. R. Dougherty, M. Ehsani, O. Eknoyan, P. Enjeti, C. N. Georghiades, P. R. Hemmer, J. W. Howze, G. M. Huang, M. Kezunovic, M. Lu, C. K. Madsen, T. A. Maldonado, M. R. Mercer, S. L. Miller, R. D. Nevels, C. Nguyen, A. L. N. Reddy, B. D. Russell, E. Sanchez-Sinencio, J. M. Seminario, C. Singh (Head), C. B. Su, H. F. Taylor, H. A. Toliyat, L. Wang, K. L. Watson, M. H. Weichold, S. M. Wright; Associate Professors P. E. Cantrell, S. G. Choi, D. R. Halverson, L. B. Kish, K. A. Michalski, K. R. Narayanan, E. Serpedin, W. Shi, J. Silva Martinez, Z. Xiong; Assistant Professors J-F Chamberland, M. Cheng, J. Hu, J. Ji, J. Kameoka, A. I. Karsilayan, S. Khatri, D. Kundur, P. Li, X. Zhang, J. Zou, T. Zourntos; Senior Lecturers W. C. Daugherity, B. Styblinski, J. Tyler

Electrical Engineering
(ELEN)

119. Practice of Electrical and Computer Engineering. (1-0). Credit 1.

Discussion of some well-known and major contributions that electrical and computer engineers have made to society; development of the integrated circuit, advanced vehicle research, magnetic resonance imaging, communication and others.

214. Electrical Circuit Theory. (3-3). Credit 4. I, II, S

Resistive circuits: circuit laws, network reduction, nodal analysis, mesh analysis; energy storage elements; sinusoidal steady state; AC energy systems; magnetically coupled circuits; the ideal transformer; resonance; introduction to computer applications in circuit analysis. Prerequisites: PHYS 208; MATH 308 or registration therein.

220. Introduction to Digital Design. (3-3). Credit 4. I, II

Combinational and sequential digital system design techniques; design of practical digital systems. Prerequisite: CPSC 110 or equivalent. For students other than electrical engineering majors.

248. Introduction to Digital Systems Design. (3-3). Credit 4. I, II, S

Combinational and sequential digital system design techniques; design of practical digital systems. Prerequisite: ELEN 214 or equivalent, or registration therein.

285. Directed Studies. Credit 1 to 4. I, II, S

Problems of limited scope approved on an individual basis intended to promote independent study. Prerequisite: Approval of department head.

289. Special Topics in… Credit 1 to 4.

Selected topics in an identified area of electrical engineering. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.

303. Random Signals and Systems. (3-0). Credit 3.

Concepts of probability and random variables necessary for study of signals and systems involving uncertainty; applications to elementary problems in detection, signal processing and communication. Prerequisites: ELEN 214, MATH 308; junior or senior classification.

314. Signals and Systems. (3-1). Credit 3. I, II, S

Introduction to the continuous-time and discrete-time signals and systems; time domain characterization of linear time-invariant systems; Fourneir analysis; filtering; sampling; modulation techniques for communication systems. Prerequisites: ELEN 214; MATH 308.

322. Electric and Magnetic Fields. (3-0). Credit 3. I, II, S

Vector analysis, Maxwell’s equations, wave propagation in unbounded regions, reflection and refraction of waves, transmission line theory; introduction to waveguides and antennas. Prerequisites: ELEN 214; MATH 311 or registration therein; PHYS 208.

325. Electronics. (3-3). Credit 4. I, II, S

Introduction to electronic systems; linear circuits; operational amplifiers and applications; diodes, field effect transistors, bipolar transistors; amplifiers and nonlinear circuits. Prerequisite: ELEN 314 or registration therein.

326. Electronic Circuits. (3-3). Credit 4.

Basic circuits used in electronic systems; differential and multistage amplifiers; output stages and power amplifiers; frequency response, feedback circuits, stability and oscillators, analog integrated circuits, active filters. Prerequisites: ELEN 314 and 325.

338. Electromechanical Energy Conversion. (3-3). Credit 4.

Introduction to magnetic circuits, transformers, electromechanical energy conversion devices such as dc, induction and synchronous motors; equivalent circuits, performance characteristics and power electronic control. Prerequisite: ELEN 214.

350. Computer Architecture and Design. (3-0). Credit 3.

Computer architecture and design; use of register transfer languages and simulation tools to describe and simulate computer operation; central processing unit organization, microprogramming, input/output and memory system architectures. Prerequisite: ELEN 248.

351. Applied Electromagnetic Theory. (3-0). Credit 3.

Guided waves; applications of Maxwell’s equations and electromagnetic wave phenomena to radiation, antenna design and optics; numerical techniques in electromagnetics. Prerequisite: ELEN 322.

370. Electronic Properties of Materials. (3-0). Credit 3. I, II

Introduction to basic physical properties of solid materials; some solid state physics employed, but major emphasis is on engineering applications based on semiconducting, magnetic, dielectric and superconducting phenomena. Prerequisite: PHYS 222.

405. Electrical Design Laboratory. (1-6). Credit 3. I, II, S

Introduction to the design process and project engineering as practiced in industry; student teams apply the design process by developing a project from proposal through test and evaluation. Prerequisites: ENGL 210 or 301, completion of selected major field courses, senior classification and project approval.

420. Linear Control Systems. (3-0). Credit 3. I, II

Application of state variable and frequency domain techniques to modeling, analysis and synthesis of single input, single output linear control systems. Prerequisites: ELEN 314; MATH 308.

421. Digital Control Systems. (3-0). Credit 3.

Feedback systems in which a digital computer is used to implement the control law; Z-transform and time domain methods serve as a basis for control systems design. Effects of computer word length and sampling rate. Prerequisite: ELEN 420 or equivalent.

422. Control Engineering and Design Methodology. (2-3). Credit 3.

Modeling, specifications, rating and operating principles of sensors, actuators and other control system components; experiments on conceptual design, simulation and physical implementation of control systems. Prerequisite: ELEN 420 or equivalent.

438. Power Electronics. (3-3). Credit 4. I

Electric power conditioning and control; characteristics of solid state power switches; analysis and experiments with AC power controllers, controlled rectifiers, DC choppers and DC-AC converters; applications to power supplies, airborne and spaceborne power systems. Prerequisite: Junior or senior classification in electrical engineering or approval of instructor.

441. Electronic Motor Drives. (3-3). Credit 4.

Application of semiconductor switching power converters to adjustable speed DC and AC motor drives; steady state theory and analysis of electric motion control in industrial, robotic and traction systems; laboratory experiments in power electronic motor drives and their control. Prerequisite: Junior or senior classification in electrical engineering.

442. DSP Based Electromechanical Motion Control. (2-3). Credit 3.

Overview of energy conversion and basic concepts on electromechanical motion devices; different control strategies including the solid-state drive topologies; for every electromechanical motion device, its DSP control implementation discussed and implemented in the lab. Prerequisites: ELEN 314 or approval of instructor; junior or senior classification.

444. Digital Signal Processing. (3-0). Credit 3.

Digital signal processing; discrete-time signals and systems, linear shift-invariant systems, the discrete Fourier transform and fast Fourier transform algorithm, and design of finite impulse response and infinite impulse response digital filters. Prerequisite: ELEN 314.

447. Digital Image Processing. (3-3). Credit 4.

Improvement of pictorial information using spatial and frequency domain techniques; two-dimensional discrete Fourier transform; image filtering, enhancement, restoration, compression; image processing project. Prerequisites: ELEN 444; familiarity with C programming.

448. Real-Time Digital Signal Processing. (2-3). Credit 3.

Features and architectures of digital signal processing chips; assembly language programming; software development tools; real-time implementation of FIR filters, IIR filters, and the FFT algorithms; signal processing project. Prerequisites: ELEN 444; familiarity with C programming.

449. Microprocessor Systems Design. (3-3). Credit 4.

Introduction to microprocessors; 16/32 bit single board computer hardware and software designs; chip select equations for memory board design, serial and parallel I/O interfacing; ROM, static and dynamic RAM circuits for no wait-state design; assembly language programming, stack models, subroutines and I/O processing. Prerequisite: ELEN 248.

450. Computer Interfacing and Communications. (3-3). Credit 4.

Hardware and software aspects of interfacing microcomputers and minicomputers to memory; peripheral and communication devices. Prerequisites: ELEN 248 and 449.

451. Antenna Engineering. (3-0). Credit 3.

Introduction to antenna theory and design; includes antenna performance parameters, analysis of radiation from sources using Maxwell’s equations, theory and design of wire antennas, arrays and frequency independent antennas; computer methods for antenna design. Prerequisite: ELEN 322.

452. Ultra High Frequency Techniques. (2-3). Credit 3.

Introduction to theory and practice of ultra high frequency radio wave generation, transmission and radiation; application of Maxwell’s equations to transmission of electrical energy in wave guides. Prerequisites: ELEN 322; ELEN 351 or registration therein.

453. Microwave Solid-State Circuits and Systems. (3-0). Credit 3.

Microwave solid-state devices and circuits; theory and design of various types of active circuits; applications of these devices and circuits in radar, communication and surveillance systems. Prerequisite: ELEN 322.

454. Digital Integrated Circuit Design. (3-0). Credit 3.

Analysis and design of digital devices and integrated circuits using MOS and bipolar technologies and computer aided simulation. Prerequisites: ELEN 248 and 325.

455. Digital Communications. (3-3). Credit 4.

Digital transmission of information through stochastic channels; analog-to-dialog conversion, entropy and information, Huffman coding; signal detection, the matched-filter receiver, probability of error; baseband and passband modulation, signal space representation of signals, PAM, QAM, PSK, FSK; block coding, convolutional coding; synchronization; communication through fading channels; spread-spectrum signaling; simulation of digital communication systems. Prerequisite: ELEN 314.

456. Communication Theory. (3-0). Credit 3.

Frequency domain and time domain response of linear systems; analog modulation methods including amplitude modulation, frequency modulation and phase modulation; signal and noise modeling using probabilistic descriptions; narrowband random processes and the performance of analog modulation techniques in the presence of noise; design of communication links. Prerequisite: ELEN 314.

457. Operational Amplifiers. (3-3). Credit 4.

Analysis of basic operational amplifier and operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) circuits; noise analysis in Op amp and OTA circuits; nonlinear OTA and Op amp circuits; instrumentation amplifiers; transducer circuits; function generators; oscillators and D/A converters and basics of switched-capacitor circuits. Prerequisite: ELEN 326.

458. Active Filter Analysis and Design. (3-3). Credit 4.

Systematic analysis and design for active RC filters; continuous-time; switched-capacitor circuits; filter approximations; synthesis techniques; sensitivity; practical considerations for monolithic integrated filters; experimental and computer-simulation verification. Prerequisite: ELEN 325.

459. Power System Fault Analysis and Protection. (3-2). Credit 4.

General considerations in transmission and distribution of electrical energy as related to power systems; calculation of electric transmission line constants; general theory of symmetrical components and application to analysis of power systems during fault conditions. Prerequisite: ELEN 314 or ENGR 215.

460. Power System Operation and Control. (3-2). Credit 4.

Load flow studies; power system transient stability studies; economic system loading and automatic load flow control. Prerequisite: ELEN 314 or ENGR 215.

462. Optical Communication Systems. (3-0). Credit 3.

Principles of optical communication systems; characteristics of optical fibers, lasers and photodetectors for use in communication systems; design of fiber-optic digital systems and other optical communication systems. Prerequisites: ELEN 322 and 370.

464. Optical Engineering. (3-0). Credit 3.

Ray optics; wave optics; propagation, reflection, refraction and diffraction of light; passive optical components, polarization, optical modulators, interferometers and lasers. Prerequisites: ELEN 322 and 370.

468. Advanced Logic Design. (3-3). Credit 4.

Introduction to the design, modeling and verification of complex digital systems; modern design methodologies for logic design; development of tools for the design and testing of digital systems. Prerequisite: ELEN 248.

469. Advanced Computer Architecture. (3-0). Credit 3.

Introduction to advanced computer architectures including memory designs, pipeline techniques, and parallel structures such as vector computers and multiprocessors. Prerequisite: ELEN 350 or CPSC 321. Cross-listed with CPSC 469.

472. Microelectronic Circuit Fabrication. (3-3). Credit 4.

Fundamentals of MOS and bipolar microelectronic circuit fabrication; theory and practice of diffusion, oxidation, ion implantation, photolithography, etch; yield and reliability considerations; statistical process control; integrated process design, simulation and characterization. Prerequisites: ELEN 325 and 370.

473. Microelectronic Device Design. (3-0). Credit 3.

General processes for the fabrication of microelectronic devices and integrated circuits; a review of the electronic properties of semiconductors and carrier transport and recombination; analysis and characterization of p-n junctions, bipolar transistors, and MOS capacitors and transistors; design considerations for achieving optimum performance and practical structures are discussed. Prerequisites: ELEN 325, 370.

474. VLSI Circuit Design. (3-3). Credit 4.

Analysis and design of monolithic analog and digital integrated circuits using NMOS, CMOS and bipolar technologies; device modeling; CAD tools and computer-aided design; design methodologies for LSI and VLSI scale circuits; yield and economics; test and evaluation of integrated circuits. Prerequisite: ELEN 326.

475. Introduction to VLSI Systems Design. (3-3). Credit 4.

Introduction to design and fabrication of microelectronic circuits; emphasis on very large scale integration (VLSI) digital systems; use of state-of-the-art design methodologies and tools; design of small to medium scale integrated circuits for fabrication. Prerequisites: ELEN 449 and 454 or 474.

476. Neural Networks and Implementations. (3-3). Credit 4.

Analysis of neural network architectures; underlying principles, circuit implementations, and the application of neural networks to practical problems. Prerequisite: Senior classification.

478. Wireless Communications. (3-0). Credit 3.

Overview of wireless applications, models for wireless communication channels, modulation formats for wireless communications, multiple access techniques, wireless standards. Prerequisites: ELEN 455; junior or senior classification.

480. RF and Microwave Wireless Systems. (3-0). Credit 3.

Introduction to various RF and microwave system parameters, architectures and applications; theory, implementation, and design of RF and microwave systems for communications, radar, sensor, surveillance, navigation, medical and optical applications. Prerequisite: ELEN 322.

485. Directed Studies. Credit 1 to 6 each semester. I, II, S

Problems of limited scope approved on an individual basis intended to promote independent study. Prerequisites: Senior classification; approval of department head.

489. Special Topics in… Credit 1 to 4. I, II, S

Selected topics in an identified area of electrical engineering. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.