U=RIsolve: A Web-Based Application for Learning Electrical Circuit Analysis [Education

Abstract

Learning circuit analysis is often a challenging issue for Electrical Engineering undergraduate students. During the course's early stages, procedures such as the correct identification of Branches, Nodes and Loops, the expression of Kirchhoff Current and Voltage Laws, as well as the application of analysis/simplification Theorems and Algorithms, usually embed tricky and error-prone steps for beginners. While circuit simulators offer a validation for theoretical and experimental analysis, they do not explain how to obtain the results nor the fundamental laws supporting them. In this regard, a new web-based framework, - dubbed U=RIsolve (read as you resolve) - for teaching and self-learning the Node Voltage Method (NVM) is presented in this paper. The U=RIsolve application goes far beyond the capabilities of traditional circuit simulators, as it outputs the fundamental circuit information, the methodology, the equations and the results related to the NVM. An outlook of the application main features, user interface and usage in electrical circuit analysis is provided, along with the future implementations.