Analog Electronics – Design Laboratory 2022

University of Glasgow
School of Engineering
Analogue Electronics / Electronic Engineering IX Laboratory
Analogue Electronics - Design Challenge

Introduction

Combining analogue circuits is an important part of electrical design and very useful skill to
have. One example of this is the integration of a microphone and a speaker in a PA system as
you would like to hear the sound via the speaker. Because the signal coming from the
microphone is very small, a preamplifier is necessary to amplify this signal in order for the
speaker to pick up the sound. However, you will want to filter the signal from the microphone
to avoid noise or frequencies you don’t want to be amplified. Pspice can be used to design and
simulate this circuit which has a microphone interfaced to a speaker via a preamplifier and
determine its functionality.

In this design challenge, you will work in a team to design your own circuit for a particular
piece of technology and perform a simulation of the circuit you have designed. You can use
any of the circuit components covered in any part of the course or from external sources.

Please consider designing a circuit for one of the following themes:

1. Musical reproduction either in the form of a HiFi or live sound. I.E. Active Speakers,
Guitar Effects Pedal or Karaoke system.
2. Heart Rate Monitor, where you are combining amplification and filtering from the
sensor and control over a light source.
3. Car sensor that can respond to changes in heat or light. For example, it can turn on the
internal heater or turn on the car headlights.
4. Amplitude Modulated Radio circuit.

Below we have covered two examples of circuits and the sort of parameters you could set to
confirm it is functioning the way you intended. For each circuit design, the specific parameters
you will need to set or vary, will depend on the specific circuit you design and your report will
be required to justify why these parameters were chosen for your chosen application.

You will be completing this in a preorganised group already arranged on Moodle. We will not
coordinate your meetings so please organize with your teammates time to work together on this
challenge. We recommend using Microsoft Teams, Moodle Chat or similar, to collaborate with
your colleagues. On Nov 21st, a project plan document is required to be submitted to Moodle
outlining the circuit you plan to design and simulate, along with allocated tasks each group
member will lead.

The group must submit your final reports on or before December 5th. Each team member will
be required to submit an individual report also on or before December 5th. There will be an

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optional lab session the week of Nov 21st for you to speak with demonstrators about your results
and circuits.

Guide on Group Work and Completing Reports for the Design Challenge

Group management

All team members should be involved with different aspects of the design, circuit calculations,
and simulation. Our expectation for how you will manage your project is as follows:

o The group will organise its own meetings and we suggest at least 1 meeting a week
until the final submission deadline.
o The group will jointly decide on a challenge they wish their circuit to solve.
o The group will break the circuit down in 4 to 5 types of sub-circuit, i.e. a filter,
amplifier, resistor network or similar, where a sub-circuit is allocated to a specific
group member.
o The team member for a particular sub-circuit will determine the required
components for their allocated sub-circuit and calculate component values such as
impendence.
o Once each sub-circuit is designed, the full circuit must be integrated and a
simulation of the full circuit completed.
o Each team member will be required to compile the description for their part of the
larger circuit to be included in the group report.

Please note any student determined to not be equally contributing to the group will have their
grade lowered or withheld for the group project.

Project Plan

The groups are required to indicate the circuit they plan to design and allocation of work
between the group members by November 21st. Please submit a short document on Moodle on
or before this date providing the following:

- The type of circuit you wish to create and what challenge you want it to solve.
- Allocated work for each of the group members, along specifying what each team member
will deliver.

Group Report

The group report that is due on December 5th is expected to have the format below:

- 50 word introduction explaining the purpose of you circuit.

- 150 words describing the key circuit components you used, for example OpAmp, Filter,
and Switch and their function in your circuit. If using components not covered in the
course material or external sources, please add links or citations in IEEE format.
- 100 words describing what key parameters you recorded and why as a group these were
chosen.

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- 100 word conclusion that outlines how your circuit performed compared to your
indented application and how you could improve the circuit in the future.
- Up to three figures or diagrams, including the circuit diagram and plots of key results.
These will change depending on what your design parameters are. At minimum you are
required to submit a diagram of your circuit.

The group report is to be submitted as 1 per team via the link on Moodle. You will be required
to fill out the student numbers for each of your team members during the submission process.

Individual Report

The individual report is due on December 5th and is expected to have the format below:

- 150 words on your contribution to the project, how well the team worked together and
how you feel the team could have tackled the challenge differently.

Submit one individual report via the link on Moodle.

Reports will be graded as per the report marking scheme in the student handbook.

Lab Records and Notes

Ensure you save the results of every task to include in your lab-book. You can take screen shots
and results. Although you are not required to submit all the results you have taken, having these
organized and stored will make the process of writing the report simpler. We will not consider
lost results due to poor lab-book keeping as good cause for late submissions or consider this as
part of marking procedures.

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Design Example:

Below is an example of a combination of different components covered in class to simulate an

op amp microphone preamplifier. One can measure some of the key performance parameters
using Pspice.

Figure 1. Microphone preamplifier

Examples of details you could take for your design:

The circuit is a preamplifier designed to amplify the signal coming from a microphone in order
for the audio to be heard via the speaker. You could design and simulate the circuit using Pspice
by completing the following tasks:

1. Design the circuit schematic in Pspice using the universal op amp found in the LTspice
component library. Assume the microphone to be a voltage source supplying 1V peak-
to-peak sine wave and the speaker an 8Ω speaker which means it should be replaced
with a resistor during the simulation.
2. Run an AC analysis using a decade sweep and spanning from 1Hz to 1MHz which
adequately covers the human hearing range of 20Hz to 20kHz. Choose any suitable
point per decade to make the plot smooth.
3. Measure the input voltage and show that it is at 1V by probing the input and choosing
a linear for the y-axis.
4. Probe the output of your design and determine the following:
a. What is the bandwidth of the amplifier?
b. Measure the gain of the amplifier from the plot and at a range of frequencies.
Calculate the theoretical gain based on R1 and R2 and state if the gain from
simulation agrees with the theory.

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Varying component parameters

5. What happens to the amplifier characteristics (from plot) if the 8Ω is changed to a lower
value (1 Ω ) or higher value (100 Ω)? Did the gain change? Did the bandwidth change?
6. The gain of the amplifier is controlled by R1 and R2. So to realise a variable gain
amplifier, vary the value of R1 using the “.step and param” Spice directives learnt from
the previous lab, and show how this affects the bandwidth as well as gain of the
amplifier for the same 8 Ω speaker.

Adding a new component to LTspice library

You can add new components to the Pspice by repeating Task 1 and 2 above using a TL071
instead of the universal op-amp used earlier.

To do this, delete only the universal op-amp from your schematic and follow the steps below
to complete the task.

TL071 is not in the Pspice component library and you will have to add this component. To do
this, Google PSpice model of TL071 and download. The following summarizes the steps to do
this:

1. Google PSpice model of TL071 OR just go to Texas Instrument website

(https://www.ti.com/product/TL071) and download it.
2. After downloading it, save the file in a location where that you can always remember
and won’t be deleting by mistake. This is because the program will always look for it.
3. Next, open Pspice and drag the file into the Pspice window, a text file will open
4. Right-click on the text file (directly on top of the name of the component “.SUBCKT
TL071”) and choose “create symbol” from the drop-down menu, then click yes. The
symbol will open and ready for use. It is possible to also modify the symbol to an op
amp symbol, but you will not be covering this here, students can explore more on their
own. Note that if you right-click other places within the text file apart from the
component’s name, create symbol may not be active
5. You can then close the symbol that is open and go back to your schematic. To access

the newly added TL071, click on components and go to AutoGenerated to select

TL071, or search for its name.
6. Connect the new TL071 in place of the universal op amp, measure the output.

Example of a car sensor system

A car dashboard contains two light indicators: one lights up as a warning when the temperature
of the engine reaches a certain threshold while the other comes up when someone occupies the
driver’s seat by means of pressure sensing. Assume that a resistive-based temperature and
pressure sensor is used to sense the level of the engine temperature and pressure on the seat

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respectively. Additionally, the car is equipped with a light sensor that is able to activate the
headlamp when the light level reaches a certain threshold.

In the example circuit below, you can utilize voltage comparators and some resistor
combinations to realize a sensor readout circuit which is capable of lighting the display on the
car dashboard to denote the status of both sensors and control the headlamp accordingly.

So, you could design a sensor readout for the following:

• Temperature Sensor: Here the resistance of the sensor decreases with increasing
temperature. (Assume 1k at 80 degrees and 4k at 20 degrees)
• Light sensor: Here the resistance is very high in dark conditions and very low in light
conditions (assume a dark resistance of 100M Ω and a light resistance of 100 Ω)
• Pressure Sensor: Here the resistance of the sensor decreases upon the application of
pressure (Assume a range of 10M Ω for no pressure and 200 Ω for maximum
pressure)

All the circuit uses the same concept, but you would have to calculate suitable values for each
sensor depending on the action to be taken and the threshold chosen. The resistor combination
R2 and R3 form a fixed voltage reference at point A. The combination R1 and the resistance of
the sensor in each case creates a variable voltage at point B which depends on either change in
temperature, light intensity or pressure (for temperature, light, and pressure sensor
respectively). When the voltage at point A is greater than the reference voltage at point B, then
the output state of the amplifier goes high to activate the LEDs or headlamp. However, if the
voltage at point A is less than the reference voltage at B, then the output state will be close to
0 V and the output will be turned off or deactivated.

For examples of how to determine parameters carry out the following:

• To get started, set a threshold voltage at point A, and a reference voltage at point B by
determining through calculation of the values of R1, R2, and R3. Also, determine the
value of R4 where applicable.
• Measure the output of your circuit for chosen values of the resistive-based sensors
(temperature, light, and pressure sensor) indicating that the circuit works. In this case
use the .step spice directive to vary the resistance of each of the sensors.
• Explain all assumptions made, values chosen with accompanying reason.

Similar circuit and concept for the pressure sensitive seat could be used to design a pressure
sensitive bridge which senses the weight of vehicles passing through it.

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