Sensors and Sensor Circuit Design¶

Course Overview¶

• Institution: University of Colorado Boulder
• Course code: ECEA 5340
• Track: Sensors and Instrumentation
• Tier: A
• Role: Alternative
• Level: Not standardized by provider (use prerequisites)
• Last reviewed: 2026-07-28

University of Colorado Boulder's Sensors and Sensor Circuit Design develops sensor-interface circuits through videos, practice, labs, and code, with a strong sequence tied to an older PSoC 5LP and Windows toolchain.

Why choose this course

Alternative 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
• Complete a reproducible experiment or implementation with raw data, parameters, versions, and verification

Workload and pacing

11 weeks at 9 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

Low energy. Keep work isolated, current-limited, and low energy; verify ratings, grounding, short-circuit risk, and emergency shutdown before power-up.

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 lists public code coverage; pin interpreter, dependencies, toolchain, datasets, and PDK versions where applicable

Hardware

• The resource inventory lists lab coverage; prefer borrowing or sharing the following equipment: course-specified sensors, calibration reference, low-voltage data-acquisition interface, digital multimeter, oscilloscope, and logic analyzer. Verify ratings, authorization, and safety conditions only after the provider lab manual explicitly calls for them

Cost note

The suggested software stack is available open source or free; this is not a provider requirement or bill of materials. The actual boards, components, fabrication, and instruments—and their costs—depend on the provider lab manual, region, and local availability; prefer simulation, borrowing, or sharing before purchase.

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

Sensors and Sensor Circuit Design · University of Colorado Boulder ECEA 5340: Sensor Calibration, Drift, and Uncertainty Validation

This is a maintainer-suggested self-study project for Sensors and Sensor Circuit Design · University of Colorado Boulder ECEA 5340, 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 laboratory depends on an older PSoC 5LP kit and Windows toolchain, and Coursera access may require payment.

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
• Code repository with pinned dependencies and toolchain, a minimal run command, tests or waveform/benchmark checks, expected output, and license notes
• Experiment package with schematic/setup, calibration record, raw data, uncertainty, safety checks, failed runs, and steps to rebuild plots from raw data