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Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering is at the heart of the modern technological world. When you watch television, type at a computer, surf the internet, or make a telephone call, you are using electronics. The electricity that lights up your home at night, and the motor that powers your air conditioner in the heat of Summer are made possible by electrical engineering. Most of the possessions you own were manufactured in automated factories controlled by computers and myriad types of electronics. A modern automobile assembly line is a marvel of robotics and automation. When you mail a letter, it will be sorted for routing by computers running pattern recognition software.
MRI scanners, which are mostly electronics, allow a doctor to see inside a patient's body without surgery, and cochlear implants allow tens of thousands of formerly deaf people to hear, transforming their lives. Speech synthesis devices allow the severely handicapped to communicate. Computers & automated equipment are making possible the DNA revolution in medicine. A robot explorer on the surface of Mars mostly controls itself, and responds to radio commands from Earth tens of millions of miles away. All of this is electrical engineering.
A list of the main inventions of the last 150 years would include the the electric light bulb, the electric generator, electric motors, phonographs, movie projectors, telephones, radios, televisions, VCRs, computers, DVDs, the internet, radar, microwave ovens, cell phones, etc. All of these are partly or mostly electrical.
Electrical Engineering at the University of Arkansas
The Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Arkansas was established in 1897. The department offers B.S., M.S., & Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering. As of Fall 2006, the department has 214 undergraduate students, 57 M.S. students, & 29 Ph.D. students. The department's 19 tenure and tenure-track faculty hold a total of $14,801,937.00 in research grants from industry and government.
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Specialty Areas in Electrical Engineering
Electrical engineering is a diverse field that embraces many specialty areas. The main specialty areas in electrical engineering are the following (in alphabetical order):
BioMedical
This includes biomedical instrumentation, biomedical imaging, and neural interfaces for diagnosis, research, artificial retinas, and control of prosthetics. It also includes the use of micro-fluidic & micro-electromechanical (MEMs) systems for biological research & the development of new medicines.
Communications
Communications includes wireless communications for cell phones & wireless internet, optical communication over optical fibers for very high speed internet, the design of internet routers, and the design of internet protocols with associated hardware & software. It also includes radio & television.
Computers & Digital Circuit Design
This includes the design of computers, and the design of the embedded computers, digital circuitry, and software that control appliances, entertainment devices, and factory equipment everywhere. It also includes the design of the digital circuitry that powers the internet. Most of the circuitry in a high definition television is digital. Most of the circuitry in a cell phone is digital, although crucial parts are analog. Nearly everything electronic has a digital component.
Control Systems
Control systems is the study of algorithms and mathematics for robustly controlling all manner of devices. Examples of control systems are image stabilization in video cameras, auto-focusing in cameras, anti-lock brakes, stability control and cruise control in automobiles, and the control of equipment and even chemical plants in industry.
Electromagnetic Fields & Waves
This is the study of the behavior of radar, microwaves, radio waves, and light, and the design of the equipment that uses them. Applications include radar, cell phones, antenna design, and fiber optics for the internet and digital television.
Electronic Circuit Design
This is the transistor level design of the circuitry which is at the heart of all electronic devices. A circuit designer designs at the level of transistors and passive components like resistors and capacitors, designing the circuits that are the building blocks for most of the other specialties.
NanoTechnology & MEMs
The dimensions of transistors and other electronic components have been shrinking by a factor of two every three or four years for the last 40 years. The transistors inside a microprocessor in a P.C. are now ten times too small to see with a visible light microscope. Nanotechnology is the study of very small structures. The goal is to eventually be able to build electronic devices at the molecular level, using single molecules as components with atomically precise connections. MEMs is the design of micro-electromechanical devices and micro-fluidic devices using the same techniques that have been invented for creating very small electronic components. A DLP television uses a MEMs mirror chip with millions of movable mirrors on it.
Packaging
Cell phones and other portable electronic devices need to be as small as possible. This is achieved by packaging many silicon chips (which contain the actual circuitry) together in a single package and wiring them together inside the package. Improvements in packaging allow more and more circuitry to be packed into smaller and smaller devices. Effective packaging can also enhance the speed of electronics. The University of Arkansas Hidec Center is devoted to packaging research.
Pattern Recognition & Artificial Intelligence
Machines are now able to read hand printed materials and understand spoken English to a limited degree. They are also able, to a limited extent, to recognize objects in the everyday world. This is called pattern recognition. The military recently sponsored a race (the DARPA Grand Challenge) in which robotic vehicles drove themselves across 132 miles of mountainous desert terrain. The main challenge here was to recognize the road and stay on it. Pattern recognition and artificial intelligence are the study of how to design machines that can do many of the things that only people can do at present.
Power
The power area in electrical engineering consists of the design of motors, generators, and the electrical distribution grid that distributes electricity to homes and businesses around the country. It also includes the design of electronic circuitry for controlling power and motors. Motor and generator design are important issues in the design of electric and hybrid cars. Improving the stability and reliability of our electricity distribution grid is an important topic.
Semiconductor Devices & Integrated Circuits
Integrated circuit chips are at the heart of most electronic devices. An integrated circuit chip is a small square piece of silicon with tens of millions of transistors in it connected together by several layers of microscopic wiring into a complex circuit. The microprocessor that powers a P.C. is an integrated circuit chip. The memory chips in cameras, ipods, and flash drives are integrated circuit chips. The circuitry in a cell phone, television set, or computer is mostly made of integrated circuit chips. Some integrated circuit chips have as many as 8,000,000,000 transistors on one chip less than a centimeter square
