Curriculum Map

Introduction to Electrical Engineering

Author:
Carlotta A. Berry, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Indiana

This Curriculum Map provides a list of highly relevant and engaging content from throughout AccessScience for use in enriching your teaching. Site assets such as tables, graphs, diagrams, photos, and biographies have been mapped to standard topics taught in an introductory Electrical Engineering course. Use the "Copy Link" functionality to paste a direct link from each asset into your school's learning management system for easy incorporation into your curriculum.

Course Topics

Electricity
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Biography Among his many scientific studies, Benjamin Franklin's greatest fame as a scientist was the result of his discoveries in electricity.
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Biography André-Marie Ampère was one of the first people to measure, rather than simply detect, electric currents by using a device of his own invention. The SI base unit of electric current, the ampere (often shortened to amp), was named in his honor. copy link
Table Table 1 in the article Electrical units and standards lists SI base units for quantities such as mass, time, and length. copy link
Table Table 2 in Electrical units and standards lists some important electrical units derived from SI base units (see above).
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Biography As one of the most prolific inventors in history, Thomas Alva Edison's greatest contribution to the modern industrial world came from his work in electricity.
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Equations Shown here are the four equations of electromagnetism completed by J. C. Maxwell in 1864, which govern a wide range of electronic phenomena.
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Equation Ohm's law, shown in this equation from the article on electrical resistance, is a powerful predictor of the relationship between applied potential difference, current, and resistance.
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Equation This equation, from the article on electrical resistance, shows the three formulas used to calculate the power dissipated in a resistor.
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Equation With this equation, from the article Direct-current circuit theory, students can find the energy (in joules) stored in a capacitor at any given time. copy link
Direct-Current (DC) Circuits
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Diagram This diagram, from the article Direct-current circuit theory, shows an interconnected series circuit. copy link
Diagram This diagram from Direct-current circuit theory shows an interconnected parallel circuit. copy link
Diagram This diagram, also from the Direct-current circuit theory article, shows two examples of interconnected series-parallel circuits. copy link
Diagram This diagram, from the same article as the above, illustrates a first-order resistor-capacitor (RC) circuit. copy link
Diagram This diagram, also from Direct-current circuit theory, shows a first-order resistor-inductor (RL) circuit. Students can easily compare and contrast the RC and RL circuits, which are shown in proximity to each other. copy link
Biography Gustav Robert Kirchhoff was a German physicist who extended Ohm's law to networks of resistors and derived the laws known as Kirchhoff's laws, which determine the values of current and potential at any point in a network. copy link
Equation This equation, from the article on Kirchhoff's laws, shows the application of Kirchhoff's voltage law to solve a circuit. copy link
Diagram This diagram, from the same article as the above equation, demonstrates the use of Kirchoff's voltage law in solving for currents within a network of two loops. copy link
Equation This equation, also from the article on Kirchhoff's laws, shows the application of his current law to solve a circuit. copy link
Diagram This diagram, from the same article as the above, demonstrates the use of Kirchhoff's current law in solving for voltages within a network having two independent nodes. copy link
Alternating-Current (AC) Circuits
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Equations The first two equations in the article Electrical impedance represent the impedance of a circuit, Z, as a complex number for which the modulus and phase angle can then be calculated. copy link
Diagram This figure, also from the article on electrical impedance, illustrates a generalized ac circuit with impedance. copy link
Equations The first three equations in the article Admittance describe the relationships between admittance, voltage, current, impedance, conductance, and susceptance. copy link
Equations The fourth and fifth equations in the Admittance article show how to find the modulus and phase angle of admittance. copy link
Graph This graph, from the article Alternating current, shows the relationship and phase angle between a sinusoidal voltage and current waveform. copy link
Diagram It is helpful for students to visualize an alternating waveform as the projection of a rotating vector, called a phasor. This figure, from the article Alternating-current circuit theory, shows phasor diagrams used to represent voltage and current in an ac circuit. copy link
Diagram This diagram, from the article on alternating-current circuit theory, shows an ac circuit with a resistor, inductor, and voltage source. It also shows the respective phasor diagram. copy link
Diagram It is often convenient to simplify a network problem by applying Thévenin's theorem or its dual, Norton's theorem. This diagram, from the article Network theory, shows Thévenin and Norton equivalents for an active network. copy link
Equations Equations 8–11 in the article on network theory show how to apply Kirchhoff's voltage law to solve for currents in an electrical network with two loops. copy link
Equations Equations 20 and 21 in the Network theory article show how to apply Kirchhoff's current law to derive nodal equations used to solve for currents in an electrical network with two loops. Students can then compare and contrast the nodal method with the loop method. copy link
Continuous-Time Signals and Systems
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Diagram This block diagram, from the article on signal processing, shows a system that performs a time-averaging operation. copy link
Equation The representation of signals as having complex values is a very useful tool in signal processing. This equation demonstrates how to represent the real and imaginary parts of a complex signal. copy link
Diagram This block diagram, also from the article on signal processing, shows how the product of two complex signals can be represented either as a complex operation on complex signals or as real operations on real signals. copy link
Equation Equations 2 and 3 in the distortion article show how to find the total harmonic distortion for a system. copy link
Diagram In most applications of modulation, the carrier signal is a sine wave that is completely characterized by its amplitude, its frequency, and its phase relative to some point in time. This figure, from the modulation article, shows various ways to modulate a sine-wave carrier signal through manipulating these variables. copy link
Graph Figure 2(b) in this graph series shows pulse-amplitude modulation in which successive sample values of the analog signal are used to effect the amplitudes of a corresponding sequence of pulses of constant duration occurring at the sample rate. copy link
Diagram This figure, from the article Amplitude modulator, shows a variety of baseband spectra and spectra of outputs from suppressed-carrier modulators. copy link
Diagram This figure, also from the amplitude modulator article, shows a single-sideband amplitude modulator—an exemplary modulation system for bandwidth preservation. copy link
Graphs These graphs, from the article on electric filters, show characteristics of a typical band-pass filter, including its gain, phase, and delay functions. copy link
Controls
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Diagram This block diagram from the article on signal processing shows a generalized control system that contains a feedback loop. copy link
Diagram The basis for analysis of a control system is the foundation provided by linear system theory. This figure from the article on linear system analysis shows a sample mass-friction dynamical system, which can be represented by a simple mathematical model consisting of a mass, friction, input, and output. copy link
Equations Equations 15 and 16 in the article on linear system analysis demonstrate the state-space model for a simple mass-friction dynamical system. copy link
Diagram This figure from the linear-system analysis article depicts the state-space model of a system that combines state feedback control and state estimation. copy link
Diagram This block diagram from the article on control systems shows an open-loop system that uses a controller to obtain the desired output response. copy link
Equation This equation from the article on control systems gives the closed-loop transfer function for a negative feedback control system.
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Diagram This block diagram, also from the Control systems article, shows a feedback control system with a disturbance. copy link
Equation This equation from the article on control system stability shows how to use the Routh array to perform a stability test on a system. copy link
Diagram This figure from the article on control system stability illustrates a feedback system with feedback containing a constant gain. copy link
Graph A Nyquist plot, as shown in the Control-system stability article, provides information about the shape of a transfer function. copy link
Digital Systems and Signal Processing
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Table Students need to understand the basics of digital systems, including binary codes. This table, from the article Digital computer, shows the relationship between decimal and binary numbering systems. copy link
Diagram Figure 1(a) in the article on digital computers shows the logic components for a full digital adder, which computes the sum of three bits. copy link
Diagram This figure, also from the article on digital computers, shows the instruction unit of a CPU, or program control unit, within the internal CPU organization. This unit is responsible for fetching instructions from main memory. copy link
Diagram The fundamental elements used to describe all logic circuits are shown in this image from the article Logic circuits. copy link
Diagram The NAND logic function is easily derived with metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) circuits. This figure from the article on logic circuits shows a NAND gate made of transistors in series. copy link
Diagram A NAND circuit can be reconfigured into a NOR circuit. This figure, from the article on logic circuits, demonstrates this statement with a NOR gate made of transistors in parallel instead of in series. copy link
Diagram This figure shows the structure of a typical digital-to-analog converter, from the article of the same name. copy link
Diagram This basic diagram of an analog-to-digital converter shows parallel and serial output formats.> copy link
Graph This graph, from the article on signal processing, shows a generalized time-sampled signal in which sampling occurred at regular time intervals. copy link
Equation This equation from the article on signal processing gives the transfer function for an infinite impulse response filter implemented in digital form. copy link
Communications
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Diagram To understand all possible outcomes from an engineering decision in communications, students should be able to create decision trees. This figure, from the article Decision theory, presents a sample decision tree for finding the possible outcomes of a specific problem. copy link
Graphs These two graphs, from the article Pulse modulation, show an example of an analog signal and its corresponding pulse sequence resulting from the sampling and quantizing process. copy link
Diagram This block diagram, from the article Signal processing, represents the input-output behavior of a cellular telephone system, which includes a combination of analog and digital processing. copy link
Equation This equation, from the article Electrical noise, expresses the characteristics of an electrical signal as the ratio of signal power to noise power related to the input and output of a network. copy link
Equation To design a one-way communication system, students should know how to encode a signal of finite bandwidth into a discrete sequence of numbers. This equation, from the article Information theory, shows the relationship between the signal and its sample values. copy link
Diagram This figure, from the article Data communications, shows a bit-stream multiplexing system that selects one bit from each of two channels to time-multiplex the data together. This is useful for communications channels at high data rates. copy link
Table This table, from the article Radio wave propagation, lists nine radio-frequency bands within the radio spectrum from 3 kHz to 3000 GHz, as identified by International Radio Regulations. copy link
Diagram This figure illustrates the basic configuration of a satellite communications system. copy link
Electronics
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Diagram A model is a useful tool to explain the operation of an amplifier. This model, from the article on amplifiers, shows how an amplifier increases the magnitude of a physical system that includes a source, load, and input and output impedances. copy link
Diagram This figure from the amplifier article introduces students to a commonly used, general-purpose amplifer: an operational amplifier with three signal terminals. copy link
Diagram This figure, also from the amplifier article, shows a bipolar junction transistor with three terminals: base, emitter, and collector.
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Equations Equations 7 and 8 in the amplifier article describe the operation of a bipolar transistor by expressing the relationship between currents and voltages. copy link
Diagram This figure from the amplifier article shows a bipolar junction transistor common-emitter amplifier, including its circuit design, dc characteristics, and a small-signal model. copy link
Diagram Students can compare and contrast the circuit diagram and small-signal model of the common-base amplifier shown in this figure with those of the common-emitter amplifier (see above). copy link
Diagram To reach a full understanding of amplifier connections of a bipolar junction transistor, students can also compare and contrast the circuit diagram and small-signal model of a common-collector amplifer shown in this figure from the Amplifier article with the above two diagrams. copy link
Diagram This figure from the amplifier article displays the symbol for a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), along with its dc characteristics and a small-signal model. copy link
Diagram This figure, from the same amplifier article, shows the two types of differential amplifiers: a bipolar junction transistor amplifier and a MOSFET amplifier. copy link
Diagram This figure, from the article Bias electronics, shows three types of bias circuits for bipolar transistors. copy link
Power and Energy
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Diagram Engineers typically use the energy-choice system shown in this diagram, from the article Energy sources, for informed decision-making. copy link
Diagram The principal components of an energy-storage system are shown in this figure from the article Energy storage, with specific reference to an electric power system. copy link
Diagram The article on electric distribution systems includes this illustrated overview of a power system, from generator to consumer's switch. copy link
Diagram This figure from the Electric distribution systems article provides a diagrammatic overview of a typical power distribution feeder. copy link
Photograph A typical transmission substation is shown in this image from the article Electric power substation. copy link
Equation This equation from the article on transformers shows the basic law of transformers, which is that voltages induced in the windings by the core flux are proportional to the numbers of turns in the windings. copy link
Equation This equation from the article Volt-ampere shows the real power delivered to a load by an alternating current. copy link
Equation This equation from the Volt-ampere article shows the reactive power delivered to a load by an alternating current. copy link
Equation This equation from the same article shows the apparent power delivered to a load by an alternating current. copy link
Electromagnetics
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Equation This defining equation, from the article Electric field, states that the electric field intensity, or field strength, at a point in an electric field has a magnitude given by the ratio of the force acting on a test charge and the magnitude of the test charge. copy link
Equation This equation, from the article on electric fields, gives the field strength in volts per meter at a distance of r meters from a point charge in a vacuum. copy link
Diagram This figure, from the Magnetism article, shows how a magnetic field can be visualized as a set of lines emanating from a bar magnet. copy link
Diagram This figure, also from the article on magnetism, presents an electric circuit analogy between flux and the flow of electric current through a circuit consisting of resistors connected in series. copy link
Biography Michael Faraday is credited with the discovery of electromagnetic induction, although the same discovery had been made in the same way by Joseph Henry just one year earlier. This biography explains how Faraday's discovery came about. copy link
Equation This equation shows how Faraday's law of induced electromotive forces gives the relationship between an electric field and a changing magnetic field. copy link
Diagram This figure, from the article Lenz's law, illustrates a law of electromagnetism which states that an induced electromotive force (emf) in a conductor is always in such a direction that the current it produces opposes the change that causes the induced emf. copy link
Diagram This figure, from the article Electromagnetic Induction, illustrates motional electromotive force. It shows that if a conducting bar moves through a magnetic field, then the flux density and the induced emf move in a uniform field. copy link
Diagram This figure, from the electromagnetic induction article, illustrates mutual induction—the process by which an emf is induced in a secondary coil when the current changes in the primary coil. copy link
Diagram This figure, from the article on reluctance, illustrates the arrangement of currents within a toroidal coil. copy link
Equations These equations, also from the reluctance article, give the flux density or magnetic induction of a magnetic field within a toroidal coil. copy link