Postgraduate Teaching of Measuring Instrument Design

Abstract

This paper describes amaster's course which has been running in Manchesterfor the last ten years. Graduates in Electrical orMechanical Engineering or any of the Physical Sciencesare taught the essential disciplines of measurement science to enable them to design electronic measuring instruments for many varied applications. The course consists of two terms of lectures followed byan examination. The third term and the "long vacation" are occupied by project work.Most modern measuring instruments comprise (1) a transducer, (2) signal conditioning, (3] conversion from analogue to digital form (4] a display and/or a computer. An instrument designer therefore needs a Knowledge of a number of diverse specialities. The lecture courses are modular and based on these classifications. The course is jointly organised and taught by Manchester University's two Electrical Engineeringdepartments: one in the Faculty of Science and one in the Faculty of Technology (UMIST) and it calls upon the additional expertise of lecturers in the departments of Pure S Applied Physics, Instrumentation and Analytical Science, (Mechanical) Engineering and Mathematical Statistics.The paper discusses the ethos of the course and the types of student attracted by the course, practicalities of organisation across such a wide range of disciplines and experiences with industrially related projects.