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Session 3220

Real-time Data Acquisition of Physiological Signals For an Instrumentation Course

Josette L. Rice and Thad B. Welch United States Naval Academy

Abstract

The United States Naval Academy offers an instrumentation course for non-electrical engineering majors, which takes advantage of the PC plug-in data acquisition (DAQ) boards and PC software (MATLAB ). In this course, several lab exercises were developed for the undergraduate study of physiological signals. This includes electrocardiography (ECG) and electromyography (EMG) signals. With the advent of real-time data acquisition and signal processing technology, it is now much easier to develop instrumentation lab experiments for student use. The current hardware and software enables our students to achieve highly accurate measurements, perform time domain and frequency domain analysis, and store the data for subsequent use, analysis, and design. This paper discusses some of the methods developed for implementing these labs. We believe our techniques have greatly enhanced the ease of teaching and learning these important topics in instrumentation.

1. Introduction

This paper describes how student laboratories using data acquisition, measurement, and analysis of physiological signals has been integrated into an instrumentation course at the United States Naval Academy (USNA). T. Welch, et al., has successfully integrated the development of student laboratories using the real-time DAQ equipment into courses for electrical engineering majors at USNA1. This course is different in that, it is a senior elective for non-electrical engineering students and only requires a two-semester course in introduction to electrical engineering as a prerequisite. This course is entitled, Fundamentals of Electronic Instrumentation, and is taught for three hours of academic credit consisting of two hours of lecture and two hours of laboratories per week. However, this paper describes a new approach to teaching an instrumentation course, which emphasizes more lab time (three hours per week) and less lecture time. Thus, more time can be devoted to giving

Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering Education

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Rice, J., & Welch, T. (2001, June), Real Time Data Acquisition Of Physiological Signals For An Instrumentation Course Paper presented at 2001 Annual Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 10.18260/1-2--9718