BSEN 3610 - Instrumentation and Controls for Biological Systems

Understanding of fundamentals of electrical circuits, sensing and sensors, simple digital electronics, analog measurement circuits, introductory digital signal processing, computer data acquisition.

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Instrumentation and controls was a class that was very out of my comfort zone and out of my general knowledge. The class was mainly focused on the big picture of circuits, sensing and sensors, simple digital electronics, analog measurement circuits, introductory digital signal processing, computer data acquisition. The lab portion was more about the application of these ideas, and that was my favorite part of the class.

In lab we worked on circuit design, Arduino coding, TinkerCAD usage, signal conditioning, digital and analog I/O, calibration of sensors, and PID control. We had the opportunity to create a small instrumentation application that would be useful in the agriculture sector, and we were required to combine all of the experiences from lab to this one application. The group I was in chose to create a soil moisture sensor that would detect the moisture level of the soil, then would determine if the moisture level was low, and activate a water pump to increase the moisture level of the soil. All of this was required to be automated in a loop, and reversible as well.

I enjoyed this class in the end, even though it was very challenging due to the content being out of my comfort zone. I ended up really liking coding in Arduino, and think I have a pretty good basic understanding of the program and feel confident in coding and wiring the basics on a breadboard.