Electronic Circuit Design Research Articles

Development of a remote laboratory for an electronic circuit design and analysis course with increased accessibility by using speech recognition technology

AbstractWhen the curricula of engineering undergraduate programs are examined, it can be seen that experimentation plays a very important role and the learning outcomes of the courses are mostly dependent on practical abilities. However, there may be a few who cannot use their hands permanently or temporarily among the students who are attending these courses. Therefore, the participation of disabled students in this part of the course has always been a problem. In this paper, a remote laboratory application that aims to increase the accessibility of electronic circuit design and analysis courses by using speech recognition technology is introduced. This laboratory is designed for hands‐free operation and enables students to analyze the electronic circuits by speaking. Google Web Speech API was used for speech recognition and the user interface was designed using Adobe Flash Professional. The parameters are sent to the ASP.NET page by using ActionScript 2.0 programming language. The application developed by using C# programming language enables programming the experimental hardware that includes a signal generator, a Raspberry Pi 2 with a camera, an oscilloscope, and a new test card. In the Raspberry Pi 2, Python programming language was used to select the desired experiment from those present on the board and to control digitally programmable circuit components such as digital potentiometers or parameters such as the DC reference voltage level. When the student successfully completes the predefined experimental procedures, an automatically generated e‐mail is sent to the instructor including the student's username, log‐in time, the oscilloscope screenshots, and ideal experimental results.

Rancang Bangun Sistem Penyiraman Otomatis Berbasis Internet of Things Pada Tanaman Hias Sirih Gading

Kemajuan teknologi dari waktu ke waktu telah berkembang dengan pesat sehingga dapat memberikan banyak kemudahan bagi manusia untuk melakukan pekerjaan sehari-hari seperti melakukan perawatan pada tanaman hias yang berada di dalam rumah. Salah satu contoh tanaman hias yang ada dirumah yaitu tanaman sirih gading. Untuk merawat tanaman diperlukan air untuk melakukan penyiraman. Penyiraman yang teratur merupakan rutinitas penting di lakukan untuk menjaga tanaman terus tumbuh dan berkembang. Pekerjaan yang dilakukan secara rutin dan terjadwal dapat dilakukan dengan memanfaatkan teknologi sensor dan internet of things (IoT) untuk melakukan kontrol dan pemantauan. Teknologi tersebut dapat digunakan untuk membangun sistem yang berfungsi untuk melakukan perawatan dan penyiraman pada tanaman hias sirih gading. IoT merupakan sebuah sistem yang memungkinkan setiap device dapat berkomunikasi, melakukan kontrol dan pemantauan melalui jaringan internet. Hasil yang dicapai setelah penelitian ini dilakukan yaitu dihasilkan sebuah sistem penyiraman otomatis berbasis internet of things dengan menggunakan NodeMCU yang terintegrasi dengan Telegram untuk melakukan perawatan dan penyiraman pada tanaman hias sirih gading. Hasil dari penelitian ini yaitu suhu lingkungan pada tanaman berada pada rentang 24oC–29oC dan rata-rata error pengukuran suhu menggunakan sensor DHT11 yaitu sebesar 2,07%. Pengukuran kelembaban tanah pada tanaman hias sirih gading berada pada rentang 47%-65%.

Electronic circuit design of stepping motor based on 51 single chip microcomputer

With the development of automatic control system and the improvement of high-precision control requirements, stepping motor plays an increasingly important role in various automation equipment. The stepping motor control system designed in this paper takes STC89C51 as the core, LCM12864 as the display module, and eight independent keys as the control function keys. It realizes the start and stop state, speed and running distance, forward and backward control of the stepping motor, and adds Hall sensor to measure the speed of the stepping motor. Using SCM as the main control chip not only simplifies the hardware circuit, but also reduces the system cost. The system increases the interactive experience between people and machines, and maximizes the economic benefits, saves resources, and can be better applied to the actual daily life.

Methods for Calculating Zero-Level Instability of Electronic Circuits under Variations in Parameters and External Disturbances

An important stage in the design of electronic circuits of various classes and purposes is the calculation of the zero-level instability of a developed device under the influence exerted on the parameters of its components by external disturbances (variations in temperature, humidity, pressure, radiation, etc.), as well as by technological variations in these parameters in the course of serial manufacturing. A mathematical description of the problem of calculating the zero-level instability of an electronic circuit is constructed for the common case when the coordinates of operating points of all circuit components are known and the task is to find their deviations under variations in the parameters of circuit components caused by external disturbances, as well as under technological variations in these parameters in the course of manufacturing. An advantage of the proposed technique is that it avoids multiple calculations of a nonlinear circuit and its sensitivity to parameter variations, instead dealing with a mathematical description of the linearized circuit, which is used to determine the deviations of variables from their initial stationary values. As a result, the amount of computational operations is dramatically reduced and the computation time is reduced as well, which is especially important for solving optimization problems in electronic circuit design.

Using Electronic Design Automation and Guided Inquiry Learning Model in Higher Engineering Education

Electronic design automation software is a part of software learning. This study uses digital electronic circuit design software as learning media, namely, Electronic Design Automation (EDA), in the form of simulations and a guided inquiry learning model in higher engineering education. The device is a type of multimedia, because it involves graphics, animation, and text as external data. The software facilitates the learning process of cadets using the guided inquiry learning model. Given its accessibility, mobile learning has its own advantages. This study uses quantitative data with a type of quasi-experimental research. The sample consists of 100 cadets in the engineering study program. Results show that the model can improve the learning process of cadets in the air digital engineering program subject, in which the implementation of the model has been integrated into a special theme from the test scores and results of cadets. An effect is observed on the use of the EDA and guided inquiry model to the learning outcome and motivation of cadets in engineering education. The researchers concluded that the implementation of EDA and the guided inquiry model are effective. In addition, it provides benefits for practitioners and educators in improving the learning outcomes and motivation of cadets in engineering education.

Distributed Implementation of Boolean Functions by Transcriptional Synthetic Circuits

Starting in the early 2000s, sophisticated technologies have been developed for the rational construction of synthetic genetic networks that implement specified logical functionalities. Despite impressive progress, however, the scaling necessary in order to achieve greater computational power has been hampered by many constraints, including repressor toxicity and the lack of large sets of mutually orthogonal repressors. As a consequence, a typical circuit contains no more than roughly seven repressor-based gates per cell. A possible way around this scalability problem is to distribute the computation among multiple cell types, each of which implements a small subcircuit, which communicate among themselves using diffusible small molecules (DSMs). Examples of DSMs are those employed by quorum sensing systems in bacteria. This paper focuses on systematic ways to implement this distributed approach, in the context of the evaluation of arbitrary Boolean functions. The unique characteristics of genetic circuits and the properties of DSMs require the development of new Boolean synthesis methods, distinct from those classically used in electronic circuit design. In this work, we propose a fast algorithm to synthesize distributed realizations for any Boolean function, under constraints on the number of gates per cell and the number of orthogonal DSMs. The method is based on an exact synthesis algorithm to find the minimal circuit per cell, which in turn allows us to build an extensive database of Boolean functions up to a given number of inputs. For concreteness, we will specifically focus on circuits of up to 4 inputs, which might represent, for example, two chemical inducers and two light inputs at different frequencies. Our method shows that, with a constraint of no more than seven gates per cell, the use of a single DSM increases the total number of realizable circuits by at least 7.58-fold compared to centralized computation. Moreover, when allowing two DSM's, one can realize 99.995% of all possible 4-input Boolean functions, still with at most 7 gates per cell. The methodology introduced here can be readily adapted to complement recent genetic circuit design automation software. A toolbox that uses the proposed algorithm was created and made available at https://github.com/sontaglab/DBC/.

Microcontroller Training Kit Design Compatible with Drawings of the ISIS Simulation Program

Microcontrollers are inside all areas of industry today. They are being used in many electronic circuit designs, ranging from very simple systems to highly complex systems. For that reason, microcontrollers have a great importance in the electronics sector. Microcontrollers are especially important in terms of students enrolled in engineering departments in the fields of computers, electrical engineering, electronics, and mechatronics. Experimental sets and simulation programs are used in the learning and teaching of microcontrollers in real-world simulations. In this study, a 16F877 microcontroller training set, designed for use in microcontroller courses, was used. The designed training kit allows experimentation with the 16F877 microcontroller circuits as a subprogram of the Proteus program of Lab center Electronics, which is electronic circuit drawing in Proteus ISIS (Intelligent Schematic Input System) simulation software tested in a real environment. The microcontroller basic hardware connections and the application circuits on the training kit were implemented as modules similar to the ISIS program drawings. Transition from the simulation environment to the real-life environment can be done easily by using these modules, and the information learned in this way becomes concrete.

Design of Smart Battery Management System for Electric Vehicle

The Battery is the most basic part of the Electric Vehicle, which serves as a major source of energy and gives it sustainable mobility. In electric vehicles, the technology that is highly recognized and used for energy storage is based on lithium chemistry. Nevertheless, the room for research is still open. This involves the collection of materials for the development of cells. The development of algorithms and the design of electronic circuits for a better and more efficient use of batteries is also one area of study. It is important to keep an eye on the critical operating parameters of the battery during charging for the optimum output of the batteries. A battery management system (BMS) is one of those mechanisms for monitoring internal and ambient battery temperature, current, voltage, and charging and discharge operations. Within this paper we speak about some of the popular battery control methods and framework. We also speak about the state-of-the-art device criteria for optimum battery efficiency and its general architecture.

High-Power Magnetoelectric Voltage Tunable Inductors

Magnetoelectric voltage tunable inductors (VTIs) offer a new paradigm for power electronics circuit design. Here, air-gapped VTIs are demonstrated exhibiting a large inductance tunability of 220% with applied fields under 20 kVcm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-1</sup> and operational stability up to 5 MHz that covers the full frequency range of the state-of-the-art power electronics. The design of air-gapped VTI comprises of two C-shaped ferrite cores, one permeability-variable magnetic flux valve (MFV) in between C-shaped cores, and slotted air gap between cores and MFV. The tunability of VTIs is achieved through the electric field modulation of permeability in the MFV based on the magnetoelectric effect. There is a tradeoff between the tunability and saturation current. The introduction of air gap significantly reduces the tunability but provides methodology toward increasing the saturation current and power handling capability due to the increased reluctance. The inductance and tunability reduces by 50% with increase in the air-gap width from 0.07 mm to infinity (condition with no C-shaped cores). Phase field simulations demonstrate that the air gap affects the magnetization, permeability, and tunability of VTIs by tailoring the demagnetization field that further influences the magnetic domain rotation process. VTIs with increased frequency range and saturation current will strengthen the continued development of tunable power electronics.

A Multifunctional Electronic Skin Empowered with Damage Mapping and Autonomic Acceleration of Self‐Healing in Designated Locations

Integrating self-healing capabilities into soft electronic devices and sensors is important for increasing their reliability, longevity, and sustainability. Although some advances in self-healing soft electronics have been made, many challenges have been hindering their integration in digital electronics and their use in real-world conditions. Herein, an electronic skin (e-skin) with high sensing performance toward temperature, pressure, and pH levels-both at ambient and/or in underwater conditions is reported. The e-skin is empowered with a novel self-repair capability that consists of an intrinsic mechanism for efficient self-healing of small-scale damages as well as an extrinsic mechanism for damage mapping and on-demand self-healing of big-scale damages in designated locations. The overall design is based on a multilayered structure that integrates a neuron-like nanostructured network for self-monitoring and damage detection and an array of electrical heaters for selective self-repair. This system has significantly enhanced self-healing capabilities; for example, it can decrease the healing time of microscratches from 24 h to 30 s. The electronic platform lays down the foundation for the development of a new subcategory of self-healing devices in which electronic circuit design is used for self-monitoring, healing, and restoring proper device function.

Experımental and Numerıcal Analysis of the Effect of Components on a Double-Sided PCB on LED Junction Temperature and Light Output Using CFD

In today’s lighting industry, with developing technology and a widened usage area, LEDs have become very popular due to their higher energy efficiency and longer life. In the present study, the effect of electronic components on printed circuits and the radiation level on light output was studied. The performed analysis was validated with an experimental method. For the finite volume method, FloEFD 2019, commercial software, was used. The ambient temperature was assumed to be 23 °C. The value of solar irradiance was taken as 1009 W/cm2. LEDs on a PCB were driven at 70 mA at first and then at 50 mA, and, by exerting power on all electronic components, analyses were performed. Both sides of the PCB were examined, and, in order to achieve efficient heat conduction, the power and distribution of the electronic components on the back side of the LEDs were optimized. With a new electronic circuit design, analyses were performed at 50, 55, 60, 65, and 70 mA. It was determined that the highest light output was achieved at 65 mA and that the distribution of electronic components on a PCB indirectly affects light output through junction temperature (Tj).

Electronic Circuit Design of a Novel Chaotic System with Apple-Shaped Curve Equilibrium and Multiple Coexisting Attractors

A new 3-D chaotic system with an apple-shaped equilibrium curve is proposed in this research work. There is great interest in the literature in discovering chaotic systems with closed curves of equilibrium points. In this work, we report a new 3-D chaotic system with an appleshaped closed curve of equilibrium points. We perform a detailed dynamic analysis of the chaotic system with bifurcation diagram, Lyapunov exponents, phase portraits, etc. We show that the new chaotic system is multi-stable with coexisting chaotic attractors. As a circuit application, we design MultiSIM electronic circuit for the new chaotic system. The MultiSIM outputs show good agreement with the MATLAB outputs for the new chaotic system.

Electronic Simulation of Neutronic Transient Studies for PWR‐900 MW(e)

To study different functionalities of the PWR‐900 MW(e) reactor core, an electronic model of Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Enfesied (PSPICE) for electronic circuit design was adopted to model the mathematical models. A classical breadboard electronically simulates the physical terminal characteristics of each network. The electronic simulator, parity simulator, for reactor core can simulate six‐delayed neutron groups, single prompt neutron, neutron source, fuel channel, the coolant, reactor poisons, temperature feedback, control rods, safety rods, and boron injection. Positive/negative step or sin reactivity functions are two case studies were analyzed. The obtained results were found to be in a good agreement with the available data of El‐Dabaa PWR 900 MW(e) basic simulator.

Design of passive heat sinks to power semiconductor with the cesaro curve

In the design of electronic circuits, stands out the power stage, which is responsible of increasing the signal characteristics, as current and voltage, for an appropriate performance of the device to fabricate. However, this stage is composed of elements like transistors, which may have a low performance, due to the undesired temperature increase, as a result of reaching the desired power. To mitigate the loss of power and with it, the temperature rise, the management of heat sink is proposed, in order to keep the work of the power stage at a stable level and avoid thermal fractures within the circuit. This manuscript presents the obtained results of the thermal analysis in finite elements of the heat sink with fins in the form of a Cesaro curve, for power semiconductors, which evidence the increase in the heat flow, with respect to the commercial ones and so, facilitate the heat evacuation for conditioning the voltage and/or current.

Environment-friendly aqueous processing of [60]fullerene semiconducting films for truly green organic electronics

Here we report an environmentally friendly and easy to use technique for fabrication of C60 semiconductor films suitable for different applications such as design of flexible electronic circuits or gas sensors.

ТЕОРИЯ ГАРМОНИЧЕСКОГО БАЛАНСА ДЛЯ СХЕМОТЕХНИЧЕСКОГО ПРОЕКТИРОВАНИЯ

The analysis and generalization of the main publications on the methods of synthesis and analysis of non-linear active microwave circuits based on the use of the harmonic balance method are presented. As a result of some classification of mathematical approaches and techniques used in the context of this method, a selection and review of basic algorithms was made, the sequential application of which makes it possible to obtain the final result for a scheme of any complexity. The principles of drawing up the initial system of differential equations for electronic circuits and reducing it to a system of linear algebraic equations are considered. A detailed and, at the same time, simplified interpretation of the approaches involving the use of projection methods and Krylov subspaces is given in order to make them easier to understand. Both the complete and the restart generalized method of minimal residuals are considered, in which the desired solution is obtained in the course of an iterative process, at each stage of which subspaces of lower dimension are constructed. The possibilities of simulators and application packages intended for circuit design of electronic circuits are considered. The problem of matching a power amplifier in large signal mode using the APLAC simulator, which is NI AWR technology for designing high-frequency circuits, is discussed.

Introducing Modularity and Homology in Grammatical Evolution to Address the Analog Electronic Circuit Design Problem

We present a new approach based on grammatical evolution (GE) aimed at addressing the analog electronic circuit design problem. In the new approach, called multi-grammatical evolution (MGE), a chromosome is a variable-length codon string that is divided into as many partitions as subproblems result from breaking down the original optimization problem: circuit topology and component sizing in our case. This leads to a modular approach where the solution of each subproblem is encoded and evolved in a partition of the chromosome. Additionally, each partition is decoded according to a specific grammar and the final solution to the original problem emerges as an aggregation result associated with the decoding process of the different partitions. Modularity facilitates the encoding and evolution of the solution in each subproblem. On the other way, homology helps to reduce the potentially destructive effect associated with standard crossover operators normally used in GE-based approaches. Seven analog circuit designs are addressed by an MGE-based method and the obtained results are compared to those obtained by different methods based on GE and other evolutionary paradigms. A simple parsimony mechanism was also introduced to ensure compliance with design specifications and reduce the number of components of the circuits obtained. We can conclude that our method obtains competitive results in the seven circuits analyzed.

A Real-Time Heart Rate Signal Detection using an Electronic Stethoscope with Labview.

Better accurate stethoscope measurements have been needed to diagnose heart problems earlier, monitor patients, and provide initial clinical data for physicians. This study aims to evaluate an electronic stethoscope for automatic identification of heart rate by monitoring Beats Per Minute (BPM) in real-time. In this work, a new design with a low cost electronic stethoscope is designed and implemented as a simple circuit for a replacement with conventional stethoscopes. This presented a low cost stethoscopes consisting of a preamplifier, low-pass filter, high-pass filter, microcontroller and Bluetooth. This simulation and experimental study was carried out for electronic circuit design testing. The condenser microphone transmited the signal into the signal conditioning circuit, and amplified it from 10 to 30 times. The low- and high- pass filter circuit was with cutoffs of 180 Hz and 50 Hz, respectively. The result shows that the fourth-order Butterworth filter was the best filter, with a gain of 0.707 Volt, -3.01 dB, and 0.782 Volt, -2.137 dB, respectively. The real-time measurements using the system are not significantly different from the manual measurements, with around 2-5%, with a delay of 1.7 to 2 seconds. The results indicated that an electronic stethoscope system could provide suitable information for BPM value and could display heart sound signals.

Digital Pulse Width Modulation Control in Power Electronic Circuits Design

The paper mainly focuses on the digital pulse width modulation (DPWM) control techniques for high performance power electronic circuit design. The problem to be solved in this study addresses the DPWM converter design for DC to DC conversion process. The control techniques have been utilized the Fuzzy Logic Rules Base method for proposed SIMULINK model of high performance power electronic circuit. The analytical calculations for real circuit design have been completed based on the mathematical modeling of the system. The results from the developed SIMULINK model confirm the target specifications of the high performance condition for power electronic circuit which was met the objective of this study. The numerical results have been carried out with the help of MATLAB/SIMULINK.

Retina-inspired neuromorphic edge enhancing and edge detection

In this paper, a novel analog retinomorphic block performing the edge enhancing and edge detection caused by lateral inhibition phenomenon is proposed. This phenomenon, which occurs in human retina, causes the visual acuity to improve in the edge regions of the object. In contrast to the negative meaning of the word “inhibition”, this type of behavior causes the human eye to act as an analogue image processing chip. The reason for that is the edges of object are enhanced and the contrast ratios in the edge regions of an object are increased owing to the lateral inhibition. We adapt the process of convolution and the concept of image masking used in digital image signal processing method to analog image signal processing method. Our proposed circuit, which exhibits edge enhancing behavior thanks to lateral inhibition, consists of only current mirrors and current subtractor circuits. We obtain the analysis results via a simple circuit design having lateral inhibition feature and the results are quite similar to that occurring in human retina. In addition to the ability of lateral inhibition, we utilize from the masking property of the lateral inhibition circuit and change the coefficients of the mask in order to obtain an edge detecting circuit. For this purpose, we use a mask whose sum of the coefficients is equal to zero. Two different 500 × 500 pixel silicon networks are designed for both edge enhancement and edge detection circuits. We have analyzed an image with the helped of both edge enhancement and edge detection circuits. Analyses results reveal that our suggested block, which is set up using only MOS transistors, can enable edge enhancement and edge detection in grayscale image and lateral inhibition behavior of the human retina can be provided using a simple electronic circuit design which has the ability of performing convolution operation. TSMC CMOS 0.18 μm process model is utilized to simulate proposed two analog circuit networks.