A Two-day Advanced Engineering Course

14-15 June 2013, Barcelona, Spain

Time and Venue

If you are going to visit The 17th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems & Eurosensor XXVII, 16-20 June in 2012 Barcelona, Spain it will be really a good idea to come for two days early and attend our two-day advanced engineering course on 'Smart Sensors and Systems Design (SSSD' 2013)'. The course is especially scheduled before this conference.

Barcelona - a charming, old, tourists attractive Mediterranean city with long cultural traditions, surrounded by a vacation area with clear sandy beaches, warm sea water and numerous summer resorts - is the ideal backdrop for successful events.

Timetable:

14.06.2012 (Friday)       14.00 : 18.00

15.06.2012 (Saturday)   10.00 : 14.00

General Information About the Course

This course is suitable for engineers who design various physical or chemical digital, smart and intelligent sensors, data acquisition, and measurement systems. It should be also useful for researchers, graduate and post graduate students. The prerequisite for the course is a basic knowledge of electrical circuits and systems. Course will be taught in English. Each attendee will receive an IFSA certificate of attendance at the course.

Course Description

An advanced engineering course describes modern developments and trends in the field of digital, smart and intelligent sensors and sensor systems design. Its background is based on programmable parameter-to-frequency (time) converters and universal sensors and transducers interfaces as a digital sensors’ and systems’ cores as well as structural-algorithmic methods for data extraction in order to move from a traditional analog signal domain (voltage and current sensors outputs) to frequency-time signal domain (frequency, period, duty-cycle, pulse-modulated, time interval, phase-shift and pulse number outputs). Working in the frequency-time signal domain simplifies design, and obviates some technical and technological problems, due to the properties of frequency as informative parameter of sensors and transducers.

After a general overview of modern quasi-digital (with frequency, period, duty-cycle, pulse-width modulated (PWM), phase-shift, pulse number, etc., output) sensors and transducers, systems details are discussed including: sensors, FDC (frequency-to-digital conversion based on advanced methods for frequency-time domain parameters measurements with adaptive possibilities), communications buses, PC interfacing and software. A systematic approach towards the practical design of low-cost high-performance smart sensors systems with self-adaptation and self-identification possibilities is presented. The proposed design approach compatible with MEMS, system-on-chip (SoC) and system-in-package (SiP) implementation. It is based on the novel integrated circuits such as the Universal Frequency-to-Digital Converter (UFDC-1, UFDC-1M-16) and Universal Sensors and Transducers Interface (USTI) and can overcoming current hurdles to truly widespread deployment of digital, intelligent and smart sensors and sensor systems. Different examples of physical and chemical digital sensors and sensor systems will be given and discussed in details.

Objectives of the Course

• To give practical knowledge in digital, intelligent, smart sensors and sensor systems design and interfacing circuits

• To help in evaluating and application of novel frequency-to-digital converters in digital, intelligent, smart sensors and data acquisition systems

• To show how to apply the Smart Transducer Interface standard IEEE 1451 to quasi-digital sensors

• To give 'hints' of sensors and sensor systems design for various physical and chemical, electrical and non-electrical quantities

Contents of the Course

• Introduction and motivation

• Quasi-digital sensors sate-of-the-art: accelerometers, inclinometers and gyroscopes, load cells, temperature, pressure, humidity, optical, rotational speed, magnetic, flow, level, proximity, position, torque, chemical sensors and biosensors

• Sensor interface chips, sensor signal conditioners and frequency-to-digital conversion ICs

• Smart and digital sensors and sensor systems design for various physical and chemical, electrical and non electrical quantities

• Direct interfacing for resistive, capacitance and resistive bridge sensing elements

• Intelligent sensor systems design

• Wireless sensor networks and sensor nodes

• Advanced analog-to-digital conversion using voltage-to-frequency converters

• IEEE 1451 standards family and frequency output sensors

• Sensor system’s error estimation: engineering technique and practical approach

Location

The course will be held in the Baix Llobregat Campus of Technical University of Catalonia (UPC Barcelona),

Parc UPC-PMT, Edificio RDIT-K2M, C/Esteve Terradas, 1, 08860 Castelldefels, Spain

International Frequency Sensor Association (IFSA)

http://www.sensorsportal.com

Technology Assistance BCNA 2010, S. L. (TAB)

http://www.techassist2010.com

Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC Barcelona)

http://www.upc.edu

Course Instructor

Prof. Sergey Y. Yurish,

IFSA President, TAB R&D Director and co-founder

Tel.: + 34 93 413 79 41

E-mail: syurish@sensorsportal.com

Prof. Sergey Yurish has received his PhD degree in 1997 from National University Lviv Polytechnic, UA. He has published more than 160 scientific and technical peer-review papers and articles, five books (including “Data Acquisition and Signal Processing for Smart Sensors”; “Smart Sensors and MEMS”; and “Digital Sensors and Sensor Systems: Practical Design”), and holds 9 patents. Prof. Yurish is the IFSA President and Editor-in-Chief of Sensors & Transducers journal. He regularly serves on committees for conferences and other journals. Prof. Yurish has contributed to numerous advanced engineering courses in Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain and The Netherlands. In 2003 he was a co-director of NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on Smart Sensors and MEMS in Portugal. In 2010 Prof. Sergey Y. Yurish has got a prestigious IARIA Fellow Award for continuous leadership roles and outstanding scientific research results.

Contact Person:

Mr. Javier Cañete

Tel.: +34 93 680 282 682

E-mail: javier.canete@techassist2010.com

Registration fee: EUR 485.00

Coffee breaks and lecture notes are included in the fee.

Payment methods

For your convenience, there are several payment methods available:

1) By a credit card through the PayPal (it is NOT necessary to have a PayPal account): javier.canete@techassist2010.com

2) By direct money transfer to our bank account (ask for details by e-mail: javier.canete@techassist2010.com)

Deadline for Registration: 7 June 2013

Accommodation

BCN Events Hotel, Castelldefels (****): http://www.hotel-bcneventscastelldefels.com/en/

Flora Park Hotel, Castelldefels (***): http://www.floraparc.com/

Canal Olimpic Hotel, Castelldefels (***): http://www.hotelcanalolimpic.com/es/barcelona/

IBIS Castelldefels (**): http://www.ibishotel.com/gb/hotel-3208-ibis-barcelona-castelldefels/index.shtml

All these hotels are situated at walking distance from the course’s venue and public transport (bus and train) to airport (bus L99) and Barcelona city centre (bus L95).