Advanced Electronics

In oil and gas fields, most electronic instruments such as the transmitters, sensors, and control valves are equipped with advanced analog and digital electronic modules to perform various tasks such as signal conditioning & filtering, adaptation of impedance, analog to digital conversion, data transmission, and signal processing and recognition.

This requires an adequate processor that can be a microcontroller, a microprocessor, or digital signal processor (DSP) to coordinate and handle these set of tasks, in addition to some other electronic circuits such as amplifiers, filters, analog switches, and modems to adequately preprocess the noisy input signals.

The purpose of this course is to teach various analog and digital electronic circuits used nowadays in field instruments targeting the oil and gas industry. The shelf processor from a leading semiconductor company (e.g., PIC18 microcontroller from Microchip) will be addressed from both the hardware and software programming points of views. In order to let the audience properly grasp the theoretical aspect of the course, practical hands-on sessions will be conducted to design various circuits, which include processor-based boards.

Learning Outcomes

Be familiar with various electronic circuits that are required in field electronic instruments.

• Be acquainted with the hardware features and instructions set of an on the shelf processor
• Understand the source and mitigation techniques of various types of noises in electronic systems
• Design and develop various electronics circuits that are relevant to electronic instruments found in the oil and gas industry

Employees of:

• ADNOC group
• Etisalat
• Du
• ADWEA
• DEWA
• Dubal
• Tabreed

Day 1

• Course introduction & pre-course assessment
• Hardware architectures of various electronic instruments used in the oil and gas industry
• Signal conditioning electronics for adaptation of impedance, amplification, and filtering
• Practical considerations of operational amplifiers, instrumentation amplifiers, and charge amplifiers
• Electronics for non-linear signal processing and phase-sensitive detectors
• Revision and exercises solving session
• Hands-on session

Day 2 

• Noise and coherent interferences in electronics
• Analog to digital converters and digital interfacing in electronics instruments
• Introduction to computing and history of processors (e.g. microprocessors and microcontrollers)
• Internal hardware architectures of microprocessors, microcontrollers, and digital signal processors
• Selection criteria of a processor
• Hardware architecture of the PIC18 microcontroller: Timers, I/Os, RAM and ROM memories, ADC module, CPU, and register file
• Revision and exercises solving session
• Hands-on session

Day 3

• Assembly instructions set of the PIC18 microcontroller
• PIC18 assembly programming for handling I/O ports and performing arithmetic and logic operations
• High-level programming of the PIC18 microcontroller (i.e. C programming) for handling I/O ports and performing arithmetic and logic operations
• Handling PIC18 interrupts in assembly and C programming languages
• Revision and exercises solving session
• Hands-on session

Day 4

• Advanced interfacing and programming using the PIC18 microcontroller
• Sensor, LCD, and keyboard interfacing, motor control, and wireless communication (e.g., RFID and 3G mobile phone) using the PIC18 microcontroller
• Revision and exercises solving session

Day 5

Course conclusion & post-course assessment