Sensor Technologies: Physics, Fabrication, and Circuits¶

Course Overview¶

• Institution: IISER Bhopal / NPTEL
• Course code: 108106193
• Track: Sensors and Instrumentation
• Tier: A
• Role: Mainline
• Level: Not standardized by provider (use prerequisites)
• Last reviewed: 2026-07-28

IISER Bhopal / NPTEL's Sensor Technologies: Physics, Fabrication, and Circuits spans sensor physics, fabrication, and circuits through a broad video spine, but provides no open build-and-test loop.

Why choose this course

Mainline course. A reliable option that can serve as a main course or strong alternative.

Before you start

• Recommended foundation: Analog Electronics
• Recommended foundation: Signals and Systems
• Recommended foundation: Electronics Laboratory and Measurement

Verifiable learning outcomes

• Explain the core models in Sensors and Instrumentation, including their assumptions and limits
• Solve representative derivations and problems, checking units, limiting cases, or numerical results

Workload and pacing

10 weeks at 8 hours/week. This maintainer planning estimate is derived from course role and the density of public practice and labs; it is not a provider workload promise. Pilot two weeks while logging instruction, practice, lab, and review time, then adjust the remaining plan when actual effort differs by more than 25%.

Safety level

Standard study. No physical lab is recorded; follow ordinary electrical, ergonomic, data, and equipment-use precautions.

Course Resources¶

Software, hardware, and cost

Software

• Maintainer-suggested open-source/free verification path: Python 3, Jupyter, sigrok/PulseView, KiCad, and SciPy
• The resource inventory does not list public code coverage; the tools above are only a maintainer-suggested independent check, not a provider requirement

Hardware

• The resource inventory does not list public lab coverage; default to simulation and do not purchase course-specified sensors, calibration reference, low-voltage data-acquisition interface, digital multimeter, oscilloscope, and logic analyzer. If extending the course independently, first verify provider scope and reassess safety

Cost note

The current maintainer path assumes no dedicated hardware purchase and prefers open-source/free software; this is not a provider requirement. If the provider separately lists commercial software, components, equipment, or institutional access, costs vary by provider, region, and institution.

Public resource coverage

Resources and access

“Listed by official page” means the link was discovered on a successfully fetched official source on the verification date; it does not guarantee that every region or account can open the target directly. Access does not grant redistribution rights. Re-check the provider page, target link, and third-party notices before downloading, adapting, or publishing material.

Practice and Verification¶

Practice loop

Sensor Technologies: Physics, Fabrication, and Circuits · IISER Bhopal / NPTEL 108106193: Sensor Calibration, Drift, and Uncertainty Validation

This is a maintainer-suggested self-study project for Sensor Technologies: Physics, Fabrication, and Circuits · IISER Bhopal / NPTEL 108106193, not an official course assignment. Use a low-voltage sensor or synthetic data for Sensors and Instrumentation to build calibration and drift models with an uncertainty budget and test disconnect, saturation, and cross-sensitivity.

Origin: Maintainer-suggested project

Deliverables

• A specification for range, resolution, acquisition, reference, environment, and uncertainty target
• Acquisition or generation, calibration fit, drift compensation, and fault-detection sources
• Raw data, time, and environment records for at least ten repeats at each of five calibration points
• A report covering residuals, uncertainty, drift, and cross-sensitivity or disconnect failure

Verification

• Keep held-out normalized RMSE below 2% of full scale or declare a threshold from reference uncertainty
• Cover zero, full scale, out-of-range, saturation, disconnect, and environmental extremes
• Cross-check sensitivity and offset with a second fit or reference method within combined uncertainty
• Inject linear drift and 5% cross-sensitivity, quantify before and after compensation, and show the alarm triggers

Reproducibility

• Commit wiring or data model, acquisition, calibration, detection, test, and plotting sources
• Pin sensor and instrument models, acquisition parameters, environment, dependencies, and seeds
• Preserve raw measurement or synthetic data, calibration evidence, checksums, and the generated report

Safety boundary: Low energy — Limit physical sensors to isolated, current-limited operation at or below 5 V; verify input and connector ratings and wire with power removed. No human, mains, pressure-vessel, heat-source, or moving-machine connection.

Risks, gaps, and boundaries

The course covers sensor physics through circuits but does not provide an open build-and-test loop.

Completion evidence

• Weekly learning log with time, questions, corrected errors, decisions, next steps, and links to that week's reproducible artifacts
• Design-review package with requirements and constraints, trade-offs, editable sources, applicable ERC/DRC/timing/stability checks, exports, and a reproduction test