Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Courses

Course Offerings and Descriptions

View the Comprehensive Catalog at lamar.edu/catalog

Electrical Engineering (ELEN)

Course Number: 1100
Credit Hours: 1
Title: Introduction to ECE

Course Description:
This course introduces various topics in electrical and computer engineering. Technical topics include analog and digital systems. Technical skills include hands-on, design thinking, problem-solving, and computer-aided design. Other topics include information about electrical and computer engineering fields, ethics in engineering, curricula, and students’ services, resources, and opportunities. 1-hour lab work includes signal processing with software and hardware implementations of digital and analog circuits.

Course Number: 1301
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Computers and Programming I

Course Description:
Study of digital computer principles, program organization, algorithm development, and implementation using high-level languages, such as C/C++ and/or Python. Topics include number systems, data types, input/output, logical operations, selections, repetitions, functions, arrays, and structures.

Course Number: 2301
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Computers & Programming II

Course Description:
This course is a follow-up of ELEN 1301, introducing additional topics in digital computer principles, program organization, algorithm development, and implementation using high-level languages, such as C/C++ and/or Python.

Course Number: 2320
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Fund Instrumentation & Control

Course Description:
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.

Course Number: 2411
Credit Hours: 4
Title: Circuits Analysis I

Course Description:
This a follow-up course to ELEN 3431 introducing more topics in Digital System Design including Verilog Hardware Description Language. The course provides a solid background in the use and application of Verilog HDL to digital hardware design. The course starts with the basic concepts of hardware description, then tackles structural, dataflow, and behavioral modeling in Verilog. Switch level modeling, timing analysis, and UDPs are also covered. Finally, the basics of all programmable logic devices and details of synthesis, mapping, and routing to FPGAs are studied.

Course Number: 3101
Credit Hours: 1
Title: Advanced Circuits Laboratory

Course Description:
Lab experience in the use of electrical equipment and elements, including the oscilloscope implemented with the current hardware and software approved by the department.

Course Number: 3310
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering

Course Description:
For non-ECE majors, this course introduces the concepts and basic laws in the analysis and design of DC and AC linear electric circuits.

Course Number: 3312
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Circuits Analysis II

Course Description:
This course is a follow up of ELEN 2411, introducing more advanced topics in the analysis and design of DC and AC linear electric circuits. Topics include Power calculations, polyphase circuits, Frequency response, resonance, magnetically coupled circuits, two-port networks, Fourier series, and Fourier and Laplace transform applications.

Course Number: 3313
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Signals, Systems and Transforms

Course Description:
Introduction to assembly language programming, microcomputer architecture, and operating systems. One and a half hours design content.

Course Number: 3320
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Computer Networks

Course Description:
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.

Course Number: 3322
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Electronics II

Course Description:
This course is a follow-up to ELEN 3421. Topics include frequency response analysis of transistor amplifiers, construction of bode blots, power transistors, and heat sinks, integrated circuit biasing, current mirrors, active load devices, op-amp internal structure, feedback circuits and stability, non-ideal effects in Analog ICs, applications of integrated circuits, and hardware and/or simulation assignments involving filter design, amplifier frequency response, current sources, and 555 timers.

Course Number: 3328
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Quantum Mechanics for Electrical Engineers

Course Description:
A targeted study of quantum mechanics for electrical engineers that develops deeper theoretical foundation for later study of electric, photonic and photoconductor engineering. Practical application of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method to simulate the Schrodinger equation is used to develop an illustrative approach to modelling the behavior of electronic and photonic particles in semiconductor devises as well as in quantum telecommunications and computing hardware design.

Course Number: 3330
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Operating Systems

Course Description:
An introduction to modern operating system design and implementation. The course will cover the major components of most operating systems. This discussion will cover the tradeoffs that can be made between performance and functionality during the design and implementation of an operating system. Topics include process management, memory management, file systems, and operating system support for distributed systems.

Course Number: 3340
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Digital Integrated Circuits

Course Description:
This course will provide students with in-depth analysis and design capability required for state-of-the-art low-power and high-performance digital integrated circuits. Topics include the physics of operation and terminal I-V behavior of MOS devices, design and fabrication of the basic CMOS inverter and logic gates, static and dynamic circuits, pass-transistor logic, scaling-induced challenges, interconnect design, and VLSI testing basics.

Course Number: 3371
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Electromagnetics

Course Description:
Vector analysis, coordinate systems, static and quasi-static electric fields, electric potential, and dielectric forces. Maxwell's Equations, plane waves, transmission lines, matching networks, and Smith chart analysis.

Course Number: 3381
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Electrical Analysis

Course Description:
Application of the digital computer to analysis and design of electrical systems using numerical methods and commercial software such as MATLAB. Topics include variables, matrices, vectors, functions, flow control, data fitting, and numerical integration. 1-hour design content.

Course Number: 3421
Credit Hours: 4
Title: Electronics I

Course Description:
Topics include basic physics and operation of semiconductor electronic devices, analysis, and design of electronic circuits including diodes, BJT, MOSFET, and JFET transistors, and their applications, and operational amplifier concepts, circuits analysis, and design, and applications. 3-hour laboratory included.

Course Number: 3431
Credit Hours: 4
Title: Digital System Design I

Course Description:
Introduction to the engineering of digital systems. Logic gates, combinational and sequential circuits, finite-state machines, and complete computer systems. one hour design content.

Course Number: 3441
Credit Hours: 4
Title: Fundamentals of Power Engineering

Course Description:
Review of three-phase circuit analysis. Principles of electromechanical energy conversion, operation of transformers, DC machines, synchronous machines, induction machines, and fractional horsepower machines. Introduction to electronic motor drives, power electronics, and power network models. The per unit system. Newton-Raphson power flow. Symmetrical three-phase faults. 3 Hour lab includes the operation, analysis, and performance of transformers, motors, and generators.

Course Number: 3451
Credit Hours: 4
Title: Digital System Design II

Course Description:
This a follow-up course to ELEN 3431 introducing more topics in Digital System Design including Verilog Hardware Description Language. The course provides a solid background in the use and application of Verilog HDL to digital hardware design. The course starts with the basic concepts of hardware description, then tackles structural, dataflow, and behavioral modeling in Verilog. Switch level modeling, timing analysis, and UDPs are also covered. Finally, the basics of all programmable logic devices and details of synthesis, mapping, and routing to FPGAs are studied.

Course Number: 4304
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Advanced Topics

Course Description:
Topics are selected on the basis of the needs of an adequate number of students. May be repeated for credit when topics vary. Topics include artificial neural networks, digital signal processing, advanced electromagnetics, fault tolerant design, fiber optics, advanced power systems, and VLSI (very large scale integrated circuit) design.

Course Number: 4305
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Low Power CMOS Design

Course Description:
Power consumption is one of the most important challenges of high-performance chips and portable devices. This introductory course covers the design of low-power circuitry in deep submicron technologies. The course also deals with soft errors in VLSI and studies the reliability of low power designs. topics studies include leakage power, short channel effects and leakage mechanisms such as sub-threshold and gate leakage. Leakage minimization techniques such as transistor stacking, input control, dynamic threshold, interconnect design, Synopsys HSpice simulation, soft errors in advanced computer systems, error mechanisms, error rate, mitigation methodologies and impact of power optimizations on chip reliability.

Course Number: 4306
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Senior Project Design I

Course Description:
This course is based on group design projects. Students work in teams to plan and develop proposals for their selected projects. Topics include engineering professionalism, ethics, design methodology, project management, development of standards, specifications and constraints, and evaluation of alternatives. Students make oral presentation and submit written reports on their proposed projects. Each student also prepares a technical paper and a poster on a separate topic. In lieu of the published prerequisites, other courses can be required by the instructor depending on the project. This is not to exceed the maximum of 11 hours set by the published prerequisites.

Course Number: 4307
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Senior Project Design II

Course Description:
In this course, students complete the design projects proposed in ELEN 4306. Students perform the design synthesis, analysis, construction, testing, and evaluation of their team projects. This course is a study of engineering fields and profession, technology/society interface, new areas of electrical and computer engineering involvement, professional development, ethics, and standards. Students make oral presentation and submit written reports on their proposed projects. Each team also prepares a poster and a demo video on their project.

Course Number: 4309
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Power System Monitoring and Protection

Course Description:
Reliability of electrical energy systems to a large extent is a consequence of the reliability of its protection system. Basic building blocks of the protection system are fuses, over current and distance relays and differential protection schemes. In this course, we will introduce their principles and applications to apparatus and system protection. we will also introduce both theory and practice of the numerical relays as well as protections of main components in power system. The course can be used as a first course in power system protection. It is useful to senior students and graduate students who wants to find opportunities related to power system protection and monitoring in substations, transmission and power plant, graduate students, practicing engineers as well as the research community.

Course Number: 4310
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Electric Machines and Power Electric Drives

Course Description:
Course description: This is a senior and beginning level graduate course focusing on electric drive systems (power electronics driven electromechanical devices). The focus of the course will include permanent magnet synchronous machine drives (brushless dc) and induction motor drives. There will be a heavy emphasis on operation, physical modeling, and applied control. The topics are Introduction to advanced electric drive system, Basic Principle of advanced electric drive system, Reference Frame theory, Sinusoidal PWM and Space vector PWM inverters , DC drives, Dynamic analysis of Induction Machines, Analysis of Induction Machines in dq windings, Vector control of induction motor drives, Vector Control of Permanent magnet synchronous motor drives, Switched-reluctance motor (SRM) drives.

Course Number: 4311
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Power System Stability Control

Course Description:
This course deals with the development of detailed models of power system components and their application in the analysis of the dynamic behavior of interconnected power systems in response to small and large disturbances. The main topics are alternate Energy Grid Integration Issues, Distributed Generation Technologies and the Economics of Distributed Resources in power system stability and control, introduction to Phasor measurements and Smart Grid Integration Issues, formulation of the power system stability problem, longer term stability and static and dynamic security assessments, and introduction to Power systems controls.

Course Number: 4312
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Power Electronics

Course Description:
The course starts with switched-mode DC-DC converters. First, basic circuit operation, including steady-state converter modeling and analysis, switch realization, discontinuous conduction mode, and transformer-isolated converters will be covered. Next, converter control systems are covered, including AC modeling of converters using averaged methods, small-signal transfer functions, and classical feedback loop design.

Course Number: 4314
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Fundamentals of Digital Signal Processing

Course Description:
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.

Course Number: 4315
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Introduction to Robotics

Course Description:
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. Prerequisites: ELEN 3312 and ELEN 3322 with a minimum grade of C in each

Course Number: 4317
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Programmable Logic Controllers

Course Description:
This course is to teach electrical engineering students the fundamental concepts, methods of analysis, and design of programmable logic controllers and systems. Topics include programmable logic controllers, ladder logic programming, and advanced PLC operations.

Course Number: 4318
Credit Hours: 3
Title: VLSI Design and CAD Tools

Course Description:
The course introduces various industry-grade computer-aided-design (CAD) tools used to facilitate the design, verification and analysis of complex VLSI. The course begins with an introduction to CMOS layout and then covers basics of interconnect design and noise modeling. Industry tools such as Synopsys Hspice, custom Explorer and Microwind layout tools will be applied using simple circuits. Overview of parasitic extraction, layout verification, interconnect design and timing analysis are also given. Optical interconnects are also discussed. the course also introduces Verilog Programming, a desired skill sought by industry. topics include design verification, gate-level, data-flow, behavioral modeling, timing, logic synthesis and UDPs.

Course Number: 4320
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Verilog Programming

Course Description:
This course discusses fundamental Verilog concepts of today's most advanced digital design techniques and it offers basic coverage of Verilog HDL from a practical design perspective. The course introduces Verilog HDL building blocks (design units) including modules, ports, processes and assignments. then it provides basic coverage of gate, dataflow (RTL), behavioral and switch modeling, timing and logic synthesis methodologies using simple circuits. Basic use of User-Defined Primitives (UPDs) will be described. Programmable logic and storage devices will also be covered. the course introduces many other essential techniques for creating tomorrow's complex digital design.

Course Number: 4324
Credit Hours: 3
Title: CMOS Digital IC DSN

Course Description:
Digital Integrated Circuit Analysis and Design. Design of CMOS switch level circuits, transmission gate logic, review of standard CMOS fabrication processes, device and interconnect analysis, scaling induced challenges on performance and testing, deep submicron issues, various simulation tools.

Course Number: 4325
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Advanced VLSI Design

Course Description:
Following an introduction on the course design and analysis of digital COMS VLSI, this course covers important concepts of CMOS-based digital system design and testing. The first part of the course introduces basics on gate sizing, transmission, gate logic design, interconnect delay optimization, clock networks and power integrity challenges. The course then introduces VLSI testing issues. Students will learn how to use test sequences for stuck at faults, transistor stuck on/open faults for simple circuits and describe controllability and observability measures. the course will then study testability and pseudorandom test techniques. Introduction to alternative testing, methodologies such as IDDQ and IBMs picosecond light emission testing will also be given.

Course Number: 4336
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Instrumentation Systems & Automation

Course Description:
Study of electronic instrumentation systems for performing engineering measurements on electrical, mechanical, and fluid systems; and design of modern computerized industrial control and automation systems. The topics covered include: architectures of instrumentation and industrial control and automation systems IAS; signal conditioning circuits; recording systems; measurement systems for: strain, force, displacement velocity, acceleration, temperature, fluid mass/velocity, and vibration; digital-interface; IAS design using: IEC61131-3 control programming languages, RDB, and HMI; PID-controls; open system buses; and an introduction to advanced topics in ISA.

Course Number: 4351
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Control Engineering

Course Description:
This course presents comprehensive treatments of the analysis and design of control systems based on the classical and modern control theories, applications of control engineering in space-vehicle, robotic, and modern manufacturing systems, and industrial operations involving control of temperature, pressure, humidity, flow, speed, etc. One hour design content.

Course Number: 4361
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Communication Systems

Course Description:
Analysis and design of analog communications and digital communication systems. Topics include amplitude and frequency modulation, power and energy spectral density of communication signals, sampling and quantization of analog signals, baseband and binary bandpass digital modulation including line coding, pulse shaping, and both pulse and carrier modulation techniques, wireless communication system concepts, transmitter and receiver design concepts, and signal-to-noise ratio, bit error rate, and their relationship.

Course Number: 4387
Credit Hours: 3
Title: Computer Organization and Architecture

Course Description:
Advanced assembly language, microcomputer organization, interfacing with peripheral devices and computer software development systems. One and a half hours design content.

Course Number: 4486
Credit Hours: 4
Title: Embedded Microprocessor Systems

Course Description:
In-depth introduction to assembly language programming and microcomputer architecture. Topics include an overview of the programming model, the instruction execution cycle, an in-depth overview of the architecture of the specific CPU, its registers, Assembly instructions, addressing modes, and an introduction to Inline. The course includes 3-hour lab work.