Facilities



Electrical Engineering facilities at New Mexico Tech include four academic laboratories, three project design spaces and a full array of state-of-the-art instruments and equipment.


Digital Lab
The Digital Electronics Lab is our largest single facility. Outfitted to handle 30 students working individually, each workstation includes a protoboard (electronic prototyoping and testing station), and a networked computer equipped with the latest technology for designing and testing digital circuits. Other laboratory equipment includes logic analyzers, soldering stations, and general purpose work areas. In many ways this lab is the heart of the department. All of our students take the Digital Electronics lab, and it is also home to the Microcontrollers course.

The lab is open long weekday and weekend hours, and is staffed with a Lab Attendant who is always available to assist lab users. This facility also serves as our general computer lab so it is frequented by EE students working on projects and using the department computer network. Student design teams often meet here for planning and project work.

Junior Design and DSP Digital Signal Processing (DSP) share a lab space as they are offered on alternating semesters. Fall DSP classes use this lab equipped with oscilloscopes, function generators, power supplies, and the latest signal processing electronics. In the Spring semester the lab is taken over by the Junior Design students who, working in teams, will design robots that accomplish predetermined tasks. Past projects have included firefighting robots, and "Golfing Robots" that fetch golf balls and sort them by color.

Senior design projects vary widely from satellite guidance systems to fiber optic time codes. As such, the Senior Design Lab is set up to serve design groups of varying needs. Each semester it is outfitted according to the needs of projects at hand. Often seniors are found here until the wee hours and after. As one of our most flexible spaces, the Senior Design Lab is well used.


Analog Lab
Our Analog Circuits Lab includes 18 work stations with digital oscilloscopes, function generators and power supplies. Analog Electronics and Circuits & Signals meet in this lab.

The Controls Lab is primarily used by upperclass students. The Controls Lab includes computer workstations, specialized power supplies, and a host of equipment and experiments designed for learning about control theory and implementing control systems.

Our new Communications and RF Laboratory is a developing facility that will soon be a state-of-the-art means to study and design communications and radio frequency systems. We have purchased a Spectrum analyzer and arbitrary waveform generator, and are just about to add a network analyzer to the collection. Combined with a variety of other RF equipment and an antenna testing site in the planning stages, this facility promises to be a fine addition to our growing educational facility.


EE231 Lab Kit
Lab courses usually require the purchase of a lab kit which is specially designed to provide everything the student needs to complete the course material. Most of these kits include tools and supplies that will be useful to the student throughout his or her Electrical Engineering education and carreer. Basic wiring tools, circuit prototyping board, digital multimeter, and electronic components are some examples of what the kits contain. We plan these kits carefully to maximize usefulness and minimize repeated purchases.

 
Last Updated: November 26, 2004