Instrumentation and Control Certificate
Degree: Certificate
Major: Instrumentation and Control
Hours: 9
Instrumentation and Control Certificate Overview
The Philip M. Drayer Department of Electrical Engineering offers the Instrumentation and Control Certificate as a set of elective courses within the B.S. Electrical Engineering curriculum to prepare you to be hired to a diverse range of automation companies. By completing this certificate, you will have preparation in process control, PLC programming and instrumentation.
This certificate allows a greater depth to be achieved in this critical area of engineering as a complement to the general electrical engineering preparation afforded by the B.S. EE degree. Students can start certificate work as early as their freshman year. Instrumentation and control engineers are responsible for the research, design, development and control of devices/systems that are found in manufacturing facilities and plants as well as in high-technology industries such as aerospace and automotive.
In manufacturing facilities, instrumentation and control engineers are in charge of the design and maintenance of mechanisms that allow goods to be produced. In aerospace, instrumentation and control engineers are involved not only with the manufacture of aircraft and spaceships, but in the development of complex life support systems. In the automotive area, instrumentation and control engineers are involved in the design of complex sensor and control systems.
Instrumentation and Control Courses You May Take
Fund Instrumentation and Control: This course provides sophomore-level engineering students a comprehensive knowledge in instrumentation used in process control. With an emphasis on common industrial applications, this course covers the four fundamental instrumentation measurements of temprature, pressure, level and flow, in addition to position, humidity, moisture, and typical liquid and gas mearsuring instruments. Fundamental scientific principles and detailed illustrations will be used to present the course content.
Computer Networks: This course introduces students to computer network architectures and their widely used core protocols: TCP/IP protocol suites. Topics include IP addressing, IP routing, TCP/IP connection, data flow, and reliable transfer for the Internet.
Fundamentals of Digital Signal Processing: This course introduces the fundamentals of Digital Signal Processing. Topics include Discrete Fourier and z-Transforms, and digital filters analysis, design, implementation, and coefficient scaling and quantization.
Introduction to Robotics: Robotics is a relatively young field of modern technology that crosses traditional engineering boundaries. Understanding the complexity of robots and their applications requires knowledge of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, systems and industrial engineering, computer science, economics and mathematics. New disciplines of engineering, such as manufacturing engineering, applications engineering and knowledge engineering have emerged to deal with the complexity of the field of robotics and factory automation. This course is concerned with fundamentals of robotics, including kinematics, dynamics, motion planning, computer vision and control. The goal is to provide a complete introduction to the most important concepts in these subjects as applied to industrial robot manipulators, mobile robots and other mechanical systems. A complete treatment of the discipline of robotics would require several courses. Nevertheless, at the present time, the majority of robot applications deals with industrial robot arms operating in structured factory environments so that a first introductory course must include a rigorous treatment of such robots.
PLC Programming: This course teaches electrical engineering undergraduate students the concepts, methods of analysis, and design of programmable logic controllers and systems. Topics include programmable logic controllers, ladder logic programming, and PLC operations.
Career Paths for Instrumentation and Control
Completing this certificate program will have you prepared to design, develop, maintain, install and manage equipment that is required to monitor and control machinery and engineering systems. This certificate allows you to have a greater depth when it comes to joining the critical field of engineering.
Primary Careers
Electrical engineer, control systems engineer, project manager, instrumentation engineer
- Oil and gas
- Chemical processing
- Power generation
- Food processing
- Manufacturing
- Technology manufacturers
- Chemical refineries
- Government agencies
- Hospitals and medical facilities
- Power and energy plants