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Electives

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Every elective Zooky offers for this major.

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Year 3 · Semester 2 · choose 1 of 1

  • Ready to learn · Level 3 · 6 points

    Computer Architecture

    Why a processor is fast or slow: performance, instruction sets, pipelines, caches, virtual memory, I/O and parallel machines.

    Prerequisites: Computer Systems and C Programming, Digital Systems Design

    What you'll learn (10 topics)
    • Performance, CPI and Amdahl's law
    • ISA design and instruction encoding
    • Datapath and control
    • Pipelines and hazards
    • Branch prediction
    • Caches
    • Virtual memory
    • Input, output and storage
    • Parallel hardware
    • Superscalar issue

Year 4 · Semester 1 · choose 1 of 8

  • Ready to learn · Level 3 · 6 points

    Electronic Devices and Materials

    Where the transistor comes from: bands, carriers, the pn junction, the BJT, the MOSFET, light and how chips are made.

    Prerequisites: Engineering Electromagnetics, Analogue Electronics

    What you'll learn (12 topics)
    • Band theory basics
    • Bands, holes and intrinsic carriers
    • Doping and equilibrium carriers
    • Carrier transport and excess carriers
    • The pn junction: electrostatics
    • The pn diode: current, temperature and charge storage
    • BJT physics
    • The MOS capacitor
    • MOSFET physics
    • Optoelectronic devices
    • Device fabrication steps
    • Metal-semiconductor contacts

  • Ready to learn · Level 3 · 6 points

    Electronic Circuit Design

    Real op-amps, active filters, oscillators, regulators, switching converters and the board layout that makes them work.

    Prerequisites: Electrical Fundamentals, Analogue Electronics

    What you'll learn (10 topics)
    • Real op-amp limits
    • Active filters
    • Filter design
    • Feedback oscillators
    • Comparators and mixed-signal front ends
    • Amplifier noise design
    • Linear regulators
    • LDO specifications and ripple rejection
    • Switching converters
    • PCB layout for circuit designers

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    Industrial Automation and Process Instrumentation

    Sensors, PLCs, networks, SCADA and safety: how a plant measures, decides and acts, and how you keep it safe.

    Prerequisites: Electrical Fundamentals, Digital Systems Design, Fluid Mechanics

    What you'll learn (9 topics)
    • Process measurement and transmitters
    • Final elements and actuators
    • PLC hardware and the scan cycle
    • Ladder logic and IEC 61131
    • Sequential control and SFC
    • Industrial networks and fieldbus
    • SCADA, HMI and alarms
    • Loop tuning in practice
    • Safety instrumented systems and machine safety

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    Microelectronics and IC Design

    How a chip is designed: MOS devices, the CMOS inverter and logical effort, wires and power, analogue blocks and op-amps, memory, and yield.

    Prerequisites: no set prerequisites

    What you'll learn (12 topics)
    • MOS devices for IC design
    • Layout and design rules
    • The CMOS inverter and logical effort
    • CMOS logic styles
    • Wires, power and scaling
    • Analogue IC blocks and the op-amp
    • Memory arrays: SRAM and DRAM
    • SRAM stability and DRAM cells
    • Variation, yield and fabrication
    • Data-converter circuits
    • IC noise and the bandgap reference
    • Ring oscillators and PLLs

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    Optical Communications and Photonics

    How light carries the internet: fibre, loss and dispersion, lasers, photodetectors, link budgets, WDM and optical networks.

    Prerequisites: Communication Systems

    What you'll learn (9 topics)
    • Fibre guiding and modes
    • Attenuation and dispersion
    • Sources and modulators
    • Detectors and receiver noise
    • Receiver sensitivity and the quantum limit
    • Link design and bit error rate
    • WDM, amplifiers and networks
    • Wavelength-routed networks
    • Fibre nonlinearity and coherent formats

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    Real-time and Advanced Embedded Systems

    How firmware meets its deadlines: the kernel, scheduling proofs, shared resources and deadlock, timing chains and hardware-software co-design.

    Prerequisites: Embedded Systems, Computer Systems and C Programming

    What you'll learn (11 topics)
    • The real-time kernel
    • Cyclic executive and super loop
    • Fixed-priority scheduling analysis
    • EDF, demand and overload
    • Shared resources and priority inversion
    • Semaphores, queues and deadlock
    • Timing analysis and latency chains
    • Stacks and memory pools
    • Hardware-software co-design
    • Multiprocessor and time-triggered scheduling
    • Soft real time and stochastic timing

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    Power Electronics and Converters

    How power is switched and shaped: rectifiers, device losses, buck and boost converters, magnetics, isolation, inverters, harmonics and control.

    Prerequisites: Electrical Fundamentals, Analogue Electronics, Control Engineering

    What you'll learn (11 topics)
    • Rectifiers
    • Switching devices and their losses
    • The buck converter
    • The boost and buck-boost converters
    • Discontinuous conduction
    • Converter magnetics
    • Isolated converters
    • Inverters and PWM
    • Harmonics and power quality
    • Converter control
    • Power-factor correction with a boost stage

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    Electrical Drives

    How machines are driven and controlled: drive mechanics and quadrants, brushless drives, Clarke and Park transforms, the permanent-magnet machine in dq, vector control, field weakening, induction vector control, servo loops and regeneration.

    Prerequisites: Electrical Fundamentals, Control Engineering, Signals and Systems

    What you'll learn (23 topics)
    • DC machines: generators, speed control and starting
    • Induction motor performance
    • Synchronous machines
    • Balanced three-phase circuits
    • Drive mechanics and the four quadrants
    • DC motor and actuator models
    • Gear trains
    • Brushless DC and six-step commutation
    • Actuators and drives: DC motors, PWM, steppers and gearmotors
    • Clarke and Park transforms
    • Inverters and PWM
    • The permanent-magnet machine in dq
    • Vector control of a permanent-magnet motor
    • PID control
    • Bode plots
    • Stability margins and Nyquist
    • Field weakening and maximum torque per amp
    • Variable-speed drives
    • Vector control of an induction motor
    • Servo cascade control
    • Trajectory planning: cubic, quintic and trapezoidal moves
    • Regeneration and braking
    • Choosing a motor

Year 4 · Semester 2 · choose 1 of 7

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    Wireless Communications

    How radio links really behave: path loss, fading, diversity, OFDM, MIMO and cellular planning.

    Prerequisites: Communication Systems

    What you'll learn (9 topics)
    • Path loss, shadowing and coverage
    • Multipath, Doppler and fading
    • Diversity combining
    • OFDM
    • Equalisation and channel estimation
    • MIMO
    • Multiple access and spread spectrum
    • Cellular systems and standards
    • Adaptive modulation and standards rates

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    Renewable Energy Systems and Grid Connection

    From the sun and the wind to the grid: solar geometry, the PV cell and shading, maximum power point tracking, the wind resource and turbine control, battery packs and life, hybrid systems with diesel, the inverter and string design, voltage rise and hosting, and islanding and trip settings.

    Prerequisites: Electrical Fundamentals, Control Engineering

    What you'll learn (21 topics)
    • Solar photovoltaics
    • Solar resource and geometry
    • Diodes and rectifiers
    • PV cell curve and shading
    • The boost and buck-boost converters
    • Maximum power point tracking
    • Wind power
    • Continuous random variables: density, exponential and return periods
    • Wind resource: shear and the Weibull distribution
    • PID control
    • Wind turbine regions and control
    • Storage and firming
    • Battery packs and life
    • Hybrid systems and diesel
    • AC circuits and power
    • Inverter model and string design
    • Power flow: complex power and the bus admittance matrix
    • Generation and voltage control: droop, excitation, compensation and taps
    • Grid connection: voltage rise and hosting
    • Protection fundamentals: CTs, inverse-time relays and grading
    • Islanding and trip settings

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    High Voltage Engineering

    Why insulation fails and how to test it: field stress and grading, gas breakdown and the Paschen curve, corona on lines, voids and thermal breakdown in solids, test voltages, impulse generation, measurement and test statistics, travelling waves, lightning and line performance, breaker transients, arresters and insulation coordination, and earthing and safety.

    Prerequisites: Electrical Fundamentals, Probability and Statistics for Engineers

    What you'll learn (25 topics)
    • Coulomb's law, Gauss's law and potential
    • Conductors, dielectrics and capacitance
    • Field stress and grading
    • Gas breakdown and the Paschen curve
    • Corona on lines
    • Capacitors and inductors
    • Solid insulation: voids and thermal breakdown
    • AC circuits and power
    • AC and DC test voltages
    • RC and RL transients
    • Second-order RLC transients
    • Impulse generation
    • Extreme values, fitting distributions and goodness of fit
    • Measurement and test statistics
    • Transmission lines
    • Reflection and transmission at boundaries
    • Travelling waves
    • Discrete random variables: binomial and Poisson
    • Lightning and line performance
    • Symmetrical faults
    • Switching and breaker transients
    • The normal and lognormal distributions
    • Arresters and insulation coordination
    • Protection fundamentals: CTs, inverse-time relays and grading
    • Earthing and safety

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    Smart Grids and Power Markets

    How a modern grid is run and paid for: distribution reliability and automation, feeder voltage control, demand response, batteries and export limits, microgrid inverter droop, market clearing and withholding, locational prices and congestion, and unit commitment.

    Prerequisites: Probability and Statistics for Engineers

    What you'll learn (21 topics)
    • The per-unit system
    • Distribution reliability and automation
    • Power flow: complex power and the bus admittance matrix
    • Generation and voltage control: droop, excitation, compensation and taps
    • Feeder power flow and voltage control
    • Economic dispatch: equal incremental cost, limits and losses
    • Demand response
    • Storage and firming
    • Lagrange multipliers
    • DER aggregation and network limits
    • Microgrids and inverter droop
    • Renewable energy economics
    • Merit order and clearing
    • Load-flow solution: Gauss-Seidel, Newton-Raphson and the DC approximation
    • Locational prices and congestion
    • Power system stability: the swing equation and equal-area criterion
    • Unit commitment
    • Contracts, hedging and risk
    • Adequacy and generation planning
    • State estimation and meter data
    • Frequency and inertia with inverters

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    Advanced Control and Optimisation

    Control run by a computer: sampling and the zero-order hold, z-domain stability, digital equivalents and the digital current loop, then state feedback, observers, LQR, the Kalman filter and LQG, predictive control with input limits, and Lyapunov analysis.

    Prerequisites: Mathematical Methods, Control Engineering, Multivariable Calculus

    What you'll learn (18 topics)
    • Stability margins and Nyquist
    • z-transform: ROC, transfer functions, stability and inversion
    • Sampling and the zero-order hold
    • Analysis in the z-domain
    • Lead and lag compensators
    • IIR filter design: the bilinear transform, Butterworth filters and notches
    • Digital equivalents and PID
    • The delay and the digital current loop
    • State-space models
    • Discrete state space
    • State feedback and pole placement
    • Observers and output feedback
    • Maxima, minima and saddle points
    • Linear quadratic regulation
    • The Kalman filter, linear and extended
    • Kalman filter and LQG
    • Model predictive control, a first look
    • Lyapunov analysis

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    Machine Learning and Vision

    Learning from data and honest evaluation, linear and logistic models, classifiers, PCA and clustering, neural networks and backpropagation, 2-D image filtering, segmentation, convolutional networks, deep learning for signals, and squeezing a model onto a microcontroller.

    Prerequisites: Embedded Systems, Multivariable Calculus, Mathematical Methods

    What you'll learn (22 topics)
    • Events and probability
    • Point estimation: moments, maximum likelihood, bias and variance
    • Learning from data and evaluation
    • Least-squares regression
    • Gradient and directional derivatives
    • Linear and logistic models
    • Detection in noise: matched filter and bit error rate
    • Bayes, neighbour and tree classifiers
    • Joint distributions and correlation
    • Eigenvalues and eigenvectors
    • Features, PCA and clustering
    • The multivariable chain rule
    • Neural networks and backpropagation
    • Discrete convolution and impulse copies
    • Image filtering and edges
    • Thresholding, morphology and segmentation
    • Convolutional networks
    • Windowing and spectral estimation
    • Deep learning for signals
    • Low-power design: duty cycling, battery life, CMOS power and sleep break-even
    • Real-time basics: polling, utilisation, response time and state machines
    • Models on microcontrollers

  • Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points

    Biomedical Instrumentation and Imaging

    Biopotentials and electrodes, amplifiers and interference, ECG processing, physiological sensors and electrical safety, then radiography and CT, ultrasound, magnetic resonance, nuclear imaging, and the image quality that compares them.

    Prerequisites: Electrical Fundamentals, Digital Signal Processing, Analogue Electronics

    What you'll learn (15 topics)
    • Thévenin and Norton equivalents
    • Frequency response and filters
    • Biopotentials and electrodes
    • Biopotential amplifiers and interference
    • IIR filter design: the bilinear transform, Butterworth filters and notches
    • ECG and biosignal processing
    • Physiological sensors
    • Electrical safety and standards
    • Discrete random variables: binomial and Poisson
    • Radiography and CT
    • Ultrasound imaging
    • Fourier transform: pairs, properties, modulation and filtering
    • Magnetic resonance imaging
    • Nuclear imaging: PET and SPECT
    • Image quality and modality choice