EMET - Electromechanical Engineering Technology

The course is an integrating experience of mechanisms and instrumentation. The course will emphasize applications of material learned in courses involving statics, dynamics and strength of materials and will introduce the students to vibrations. The integration of these subjects will be enhanced through the laboratory experience where the student will study different mechanisms with the aid of transducers and instrumentation. The course will include the study of levers, links, slide mechanisms, scotch yoke and the principles of force, torque, velocity, acceleration, inertia and friction. Techniques of instrumentation for R & D and automation including set-up and calibration of transducers, readouts, and data acquisition as well as application of computers to data acquisition, data reduction and design analysis are covered.

This course introduces the student to general characteristics of electromechanical sensors and transducers, electrical measurement systems, electronics signal conditioning, data acquisition systems, and response characteristics of instruments. The lectures focus on the selection, calibration techniques and applications of electromechanical transducers. The laboratory has industrial equipment, such as a punch press, drill press, and metal lathe, which are equipped with sensors that are configured to measure physical quantities such as force, strain, displacement, velocity, and acceleration. Data acquisition and real-time software applications using LabVIEW are applied in a laboratory environment.

The course begins with the fundamentals of the C and C++ language, program structure, and debugging techniques. Topics include the programming environment, data types and operators, if and case statements, loops, arrays, and strings, pointers, structures and classes, I/O and file operations. The course will focus on program development for the Microsoft Windows environment - i.e. developing Windows programs and utilizing the system resources. Must have prior programming language experience.

A student may contract for one to four credit hours of independent study through an arrangement with an instructor who agrees to direct such a study. The student will submit a plan acceptable to the instructor and to the department chair. The instructor and student will confer regularly regarding the process of the study.

Feedback control systems with topics in time response, stability criteria, system representation, root locus diagrams, and compensation. Laboratory: analog simulation of electrical and mechanical systems using MATLAB and SIMULINK, use of a PLC as a controller, XY and circular motion control.