Showing posts with label Week 4. Show all posts
Operational Amplifier
By : Lam Ho Wang
Operational Amplifier
What is operational amplifier ?
An operational amplifier (or an op-amp) is an integrated circuit (IC) that operates as a voltage amplifier. An op-amp has a differential input. That is, it has two inputs of opposite polarity. An op-amp has a single output and a very high gain, which means that the output signal is much higher than input signal. An op-amp is often represented in a circuit diagram with the following symbol:
These amplifiers are called "operation" amplifiers because they were initially designed as an effective device for performing arithmetic operations in an analog circuit. The op-amp has many other applications in signal processing, measurement, and instrumentation.
Feed back
An ideal opamp has infinite gain. It amplifies the difference in voltage between the + and - pins. Of course in reality this gain is not infinite, but still quite large.
Why feed back is needed ?
The output of the opamp (at to some extents the input also) is constrained by the power supply, we can't get out more than the supply puts in.If we simply put signals into the opamp without feedback it would multiply them by infinity and get a binary output (it would saturate at the supply rails)So, we need some way of controlling the gain. That is what the feedback does.
Pros:
- Can increase or decrease input impedance (depending on type of feedback)
- Can increase or decrease output impedance (depending on type of feedback)
- Reduces distortion (increases linearity)
- Increases the bandwidth
- Desensitizes gain to component variations
- Can control step response of amplifier
Cons:
- May lead to instability if not designed carefully
- Amplifier gain decreases
| LM741 The opamp that the group is using |
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Background,
Week 4,
Android Development
By : x
For our mobile application we have chosen Android as our development pattern. Android has seen major growth over the past few years and is now the most widely used mobile platform of the world.
| Worldwide smartphone sales to end users by operating system in 2013 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Android | 79.0% | |||
| iOS | 14.2% | |||
| Windows Phone | 3.3% | |||
| BlackBerry | 2.7% | |||
| Other | 0.9% | |||
| Figure: Mobile OS Market Share as of 2nd quarter 2013 Gartner | ||||
To begin development on Android familiarity with Java is required. Many of the developer tools can be found in the official Android Developer Website - developer.android.com
To begin development start by downloading the official Android Software Development Kit (SDK) for the developer website. To write apps you can use any development environment of choice, for this project we will be using the official Android Studio provided on the developer website.
UPDATE - Week 4
By : xThis is the final planned week for hardware development. We are still working on getting the hardware ready. We have collected most of the parts required for assembling the hardware. We are trying to get all the required components together and test our self made ECG. We have also ordered another ECG as a backup if our ECG doesn't function properly.
Marco is researching on ECG, op-amps and sensor. Ashish is working on Android application development and Xingyu is looking into Arduino Programming and algorithm development.
- Click here to view the getting started with Android Development by Ashish
- Click here to learn about op-amps by Marco
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Week 4,
Weekly Update,




