Electrical Engineering Labs

Housing new power system simulation equipment worth approximately $550,000, the lab provides students a unique opportunity to study and measure performances of single- and three-phase transformers, DC generator and motor, and synchronous generator and motor. Students also experience how to send electricity generated in the lab to the utility company Avista.

Electrical and computer engineering students gain practical experience in the use of basic hardware components, Verilog hardware description language and state-of-the-art field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Through experiments, students become familiar with gates, multiplexers, decoders, flip-flops, counters, registers and displays.

Students build and test electronic circuits on Digilent breadboards that are connected to desktop computers, which contain embedded instruments. These instruments consist of power supplies, oscilloscopes, network analyzers, and multimeters. Students gain practical experience in building and troubleshooting electronic circuits, using appropriate instruments, and gathering and presenting the data that is generated.

Electrical engineering students build and test communication systems on a variety of Robots. They also analyze Robots’ performance, design PID or modern controllers to improve the performance, and then implement the controllers on the Robots. Students gain experiences in system analysis, controller design and test, and communication system buildup.

Students learn the fundamental concepts of electric circuit measurements, understand the main features of power supply sources, analog and digital multimeters, and learn how to operate and use the signal generator and the oscilloscope.

Students conduct experiments to model a physical system consisting of a moving-coil permanent-magnet DC motor and a pulse-width modulation amplifier, then build a control system with analog PID controller for the physical system. Students also conduct experiments on digital control systems to observe the system output performance.

Students conduct experiments in a communication lab where they become acquainted with oscilloscopes, signal generators and spectrum analyzers. Measurement of common signals such as sinusoids and periodic square waves are conducted in both the time and frequency domain. The training and experience that electrical engineering students gain in this laboratory enhances their understanding of analog and digital communication systems.