Laboratory Facilities
The Program uses several laboratories from the ECE and MIE Departments. These laboratories support courses in the areas of Thermal Sciences, Mechanical Systems & Dynamics, Electronic Circuits Systems, Digital Systems, Control Systems, and Electromechanical Systems. Except the control lab, all other laboratories are currently located in the Engineering East and West buildings. Most of these laboratories support a few dedicated courses. Below is a brief description about each Lab. Details of Equipment, location and status of each Lab are available in Appendix C.
Automation & Robotics Laboratory
A newly added Laboratory extension is expected to house the Automation & Robotics Laboratory. The steering committee has already purchased a number of equipment for that Lab this includes Ball & Plate apparatus, Digital Servo Workshop, Pekee Robotic Platform, Mechatronics Project Kit, PLC process trainer, and coupled tanks apparatus. The Lab will also be equipped with PC’s with data acquisition cards and MATLAB and LABVIEW software.
The Circuits & Electronics Laboratory
The Circuits & Electronics Laboratory in room 0001 is a large 173 square meter facility which supports five to six undergraduate courses per semester; three of which are core courses and as such must be taken by all MCE students. Supported courses include ECCE 2016 and ECCE 3016 Circuit Analysis I and II, and MCTE 3110 Electronics.
The Circuits Laboratory has fifteen benches and test equipment. Each bench is allocated a DC power supply, a waveform generator, an audio function generator, a digital multi-meter, and a digital oscilloscope. The lab also has a few fast oscilloscopes, frequency meters, transfer function analyzers, sweep function generators, power electronic trainers, programmable controllers, and x-y recorders. The equipment is of relatively of recent vintage and is well maintained by the laboratory engineers. Also, a modest stockroom supplies pre-made laboratory kits, a stock of commonly used components, and access to an up-to-date component database and electronics catalogs so that students and project teams can easily find or order unavailable parts. The laboratory is available to students during working hours.
The Digital Laboratory
The Digital Laboratory in room 0051 is 181 square meters. The laboratory supports ECCE 4226 Microprocessor, ECCE 3206 Digital Design, ECCE5334 Computer Architecture, and ECCE 4321 Advanced Computer Lab.
The room is equipped with fifteen benches, nineteen PCs used for simulation and signal processing, eleven DSP modules, twelve Altera University Program systems, four logic analyzers, six programmable controllers, eleven microprocessor applications trainers, twelve microprocessor systems, six digital trainers, fifteen analogue SIMULOG trays, digital I/O modules, seven stepping motor modules, seven traffic light control modules, and fifteen regulated power supplies. The room also has a few programmable function generators, digital storage oscilloscopes, dual-channel pulse generators, laboratory SUN simulator, and A/D and D/A converters. The equipment is working in order. In fall 2005, the lab moved to the new building in room 0005 with an area of 175 square meters after being adequately equipped.
The Control Laboratory
The Control Laboratory is located in the Engineering North Building in room 1022. The laboratory space is 190 square meters. The lab supports the courses MCTE 4250 Linear control Systems.
It contains Transducer and Instrumentation Trainers, DIGIAC 2000 Microprocessor Training Systems, robot arms, analogue I/O PC-interfacing boards, Servo-systems, PLC based control processes, Inverted Pendulum and additional hardware for system and process control.
The Electric Machines, Power Electronics and Drives Laboratory
The Electric Machines, Power Electronics and Drives Laboratory in room 0007 has an of area of 251 square meters and supports two courses: MCTE3210 Electromechanical Systems & Actuators and MCTE4210 Power Electronics & Drives.
The PCB Laboratory
The PCB Laboratory in the Engineering West building contains appropriate equipment for circuit layout drawing, UV pattern transfer, and development. Instructions on how to handle and dispose chemicals and how to operate safely are emphasized. This lab is used by students to implement designs for course mini-projects, final-year projects, and IEEE society students’ projects. The master and final-year students’ laboratory in room 1001 of the Engineering East building provides an extra working space for students to accomplish these projects.
Properties of Materials Laboratory
This laboratory supports instructions on topics related to material properties. Through the use of the laboratory, students are expected to develop an appreciation in understanding material performance and to relate internal structure with mechanical properties of material that is very important to all material applications. Facilities include metallographic preparation of specimens, etching room, injection moulding unit, hardness tester, heat treating furnaces, tensile testing equipment, and welding equipment.
Mechanical Systems Laboratory
This laboratory has basic facilities to conduct projects on condition monitoring and vibration testing. The equipment and accessories include real time analyzers, accelerometers, acoustic emission sensors, on line data acquisition and signal processing modules.
Solid Mechanics Laboratory
Solid Mechanics laboratory is used for conducting basic mechanical tests i.e., tensile, compressive, bending, torsion, fatigue, creep and impact tests.
Engineering Workshops
The mission of the Workshop is to provide students with an understanding of machining processes. This mission has two aspects. First students have hands-on experience in machining to better understand the capabilities and limitations of the various processes. Second, the laboratory allows students to collect data on the processes to assist them in comprehending the science of the processes.
There are two workshops in the MIE Department. Students learn basic machine shop practices: part layout, process planning, milling, drilling, turning, thread formation, tool selection, grinding, measurement, use of hand tools, welding and cutting processes. Other topics covered are drawing layout, dimensioning, and other pertinent issues. As they continue on with higher-level coursework, the workshops provide additional hands-on educational experiences. Access to the shop and tools create opportunities for students to engage in challenging activities and projects in engineering.
CIM Lab
The CIM Lab presents the coupling between manufacturing simulations and production control and emphasizes the basics of parallel and distributed processing techniques. The Lab consists of a production line that includes two CNC machines, two robots, an assembly station, a material handling system, an automated guided vehicle (AGV) and an automatic storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) that represent an entire factory environment. A SCADA system coordinates the different workstations as well as the flow of material. The lab supports CIM and CAD/CAM courses.
Computing Infrastructure
In addition to the basic laboratories and workshop facilities described above the college of engineering has a good computing and information infrastructure. The MCE students have access to both ECE and MIE departments Labs. The MIE Department has two computer lab named as CAMIE1 Lab which houses 40 PC’s and CAMIE2 which has 32 PC’s.. The labs are equipped with software packages such as Microsoft office, MATLAB, AutoCAD, Arena, 20-SIM Simulation Software, Phoenics and CFX computational fluid dynamics and Algor FEA. The department is also getting support from Computer Center (CC) through two full time computer specialists stationed in the College of Engineering in addition to direct support from the CET.
In addition to the above, The ECE has thirty six networked PCs running Windows XP currently located in room 0012 of the Engineering East building. Room 0011 of the same building is also fully equipped with computing facilities. Also, a general-purpose computer lab located in room 1009 of the same building containing 20 PCs and equipped with networked printer is provided. The MCE students can also use networked PCs in the College of Engineering where more than 120 PCs are placed in three different rooms. Therefore, students have access to a variety of computing spaces from College, ECE and MIE departments.
In order to improve the learning conditions of final-year students, room 1011 of the Engineering East building offers a new space fit-to-purpose. The previous network lab in the Engineering building was used for this purpose; however, it was not available on a continuous basis. The new space is 123 square meters and contains necessary components. This is expected to create a better learning environment.
All PCs are equipped with the latest software tools that are needed in the MCE program. PC software applications include the Microsoft Office Suite, Visual Studio 6.0 (Software Development), Internet Explorer and Photo Editor. Modern computational tools include MATLAB, OrCAD and PSpice circuit simulation, MathCAD, Solidworks, and other software packages are available.
The University provides intranet and internet servers support for email and website hosting for all Colleges and Departments. The MCE program website is used for dissemination of course materials, policies and information. Undergraduate students are provided with a 15 MB email storage quota and a reasonable printing quota. Faculty and staff are provided with 65MB email quota.