This course provides a brief overview of the basic principles on which modern sensor technology functions. In describing modern sensor devices, we will need to also incorporate the basic concepts of physical measurement and the use of measurement instrumentation. In examining the basics principles of sensor operation, we will cover some of the fundamental effects, physical phenomena, laws and rules of physics which are used by sensors to measure and quantify. Though much of the modern sensor technology are based on MEMS (micro electro-mechanical systems), many of the same physical mechanisms which had allowed analog sensors in the past to operate, are still being used today in these micro “devices and machines”.

Learning Objectives