Applied Electronics (ELA)

The Applied Electronics - ELA degree program trains engineers specialized in both classical and modern areas of electronics.

A key feature of the training of the future ELA engineer is the ability to easily adapt to various application challenges with a common denominator - the "basic functional building blocks" and the "related assembly tools".

Modern Applied Electronics focuses on the electronics of dedicated systems - "embedded systems", a term that refers to a wide variety of electronic products, with extremely diverse behavior and functionality. They are an integrated part of more complex systems. Currently, more than 99% of the processors operate in dedicated electronic systems rather than in classical computers. This new structural and conceptual approach underpins the growing competitiveness in many sectors: industry, telecommunications, medicine, military, consumer goods, energy, etc.

Competencies provided by the ELA study program:

• Use the fundamentals of electronic devices, circuits and instrumentation;
• Application of basic electrical and non-electrical signal processing methods in typical situations and implementation of procedures of medium complexity on signal processors;
• Understand and use the fundamental concepts of communication and information transmission;
• Application of elementary knowledge, concepts and methods in computer systems architecture, microcontrollers, programming languages and techniques;
• Solving electronic technology problems in production processes and maintenance (adjustment, testing, troubleshooting) of devices and installations in the fields of power electronics, medical electronics, automatic systems and robots, as well as developing projects of medium complexity;
• Power management in electronic appliances and installations used in industry, transportation and medicine;
• Ability to communicate and collaborate with specialists in fields other than electronics, ensuring an efficient interface between the technical problems they encounter and the proposed solutions;
• Methodical analysis of the problems encountered in the activity, identifying the elements for which there are established solutions, thus ensuring the fulfillment of professional tasks;
• Adapt flexibly to new systems and technologies in the field, working in teams with well-defined tasks.

Romanian language curriculum / English curriculum

In 1953, when the Faculty of Electronics was founded within the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, one of the specialization directions was Industrial Electronics. Its further development is materialized in the subfield of the ELA program through Industrial Electronics and Informatics. The direct importance of this sub-subdiscipline and, in particular, of the Power Electronics component stems from the many applications in industry, transportation, utilities, aeronautics, military equipment, telecommunications, medical equipment, household appliances, etc. The subject of Power Electronics - the efficient processing of electrical power, including its command and control, is concerned with the use of optimal methods of energy processing with the help of electronic converters and on the basis of process information. Dedicated systems and programming technologies are inseparable elements of the field. Efficient transformation and processing of electrical power from one level to another and from one form to another is not possible without a number of adjacent elements, measurement, data acquisition, analog/digital processing of command and control vectors.

The modern era of (industrial) electrical power processing (industrial) electronics can practically be traced back to the early 1960s when the foundations of power semiconductor devices, conversion and control circuits were laid. Nowadays power electronics is the electronics of dedicated systems - at the modular level, both power and signal processing components - power processors including intelligent electrical power conversion with classical or neuro-fuzzy systems. The field of power conversion electronics is represented by the courses Electronics and Industrial Informatics and Power Electronic Processors as compulsory subjects and Power Electronics (Switching Power Supplies), Computer Aided Analysis of Power Electronic Circuits (Modeling of Electronic Converters) as electives, as electives of your choice. This set of specialized subjects provides the fundamental theoretical and practical knowledge of electrical power processing using information technologies. Today, there is virtually no electronic equipment without power electronics components.

The broader framework of Industrial Electronics and Informatics also includes the disciplines of Automatic Testing of Equipment and Processes as well as Automation in Electronics and Telecommunications. Testing of electronic and process equipment, communication standards for programmable instrumentation, process diagnosis, as well as analysis and modeling of analog / digital automated systems and equipment in the time and frequency domains are the subject of in-depth ELA training, also targeting Electronics and Informatics Industrial.

Theoretical and technological advances in electronics and informatics play a significant role in the training of ELA specialists according to the latest achievements in this deeply multidisciplinary field. The fast, continuous pace of development in biomedical engineering has led to the emergence of an ELA subdomain of major importance, Electronics and Medical Informatics. The Romanian school of medical electronics and informatics started in 1968, when the first courses and applications were introduced in the curriculum of the Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications. The training of students to expand the knowledge in the field of applied electronics has led to increased knowledge including the design and use of electronic equipment in medicine in order to improve the medical act by promoting technological and informational solutions in all medical fields. Today, electronics is an inseparable component of the medical act, the need for specialists being constantly growing.

In the curriculum of the Applied Electronics degree program, the field of medical electronics and informatics is supported by subjects such as Medical Electronics and Informatics, Medical Imaging and Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems. The Electronics and Medical Informatics discipline presents the main applications of the field, highlighting aspects related to electromagnetic phenomena in the human body, methods of analyzing, measuring and processing them. The discipline of Medical Imaging is inseparable from the field of medical electronics, the course emphasizing the physical and technical principles of analyzing, processing and reconstructing medical images in order to establish an effective diagnosis and treatment. In recent years, medical imaging has been launched and developed as a non-invasive approach to diagnosis as a result of the evolution of various imaging methods and technologies: x-rays, ultrasound, computed tomography, nuclear magnetic resonance and others.

The discipline of Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems aims to expand knowledge on modern methods of signal processing and analysis in the broader field of applied electronics and, in particular, in the subfield of Medical Electronics ELA.

Particular attention is paid to the specialization of Applied Electronics in Computational Intelligence. A system based on Computational Intelligence is defined as an intelligent system capable of "learning, self-instruction and self-adaptation", attributes that could not exist without the electronic symbiosis - computational technique. The courses in Computer Systems Architecture, Programmable Electronic Systems or Reconfigurable Computing Systems complete the basic knowledge of dedicated systems, while providing the hardware and software knowledge needed to integrate the classic fields of electronics into modern and efficient structures. Among the specific competencies that these disciplines form in the ELA curriculum is the creation of skills to apply general knowledge on the architectural attributes of computing systems, the concepts of design and use of programmable microelectronic systems with general purpose microprocessors and microcontrollers in digital signal processing systems, robotics, control and regulation systems, providing basics in the field of reconfigurable hardware structures, specific development and design tools and practical methods for implementing a finished product in a reconfigurable technology.

Ability to use testing and simulation programs is acquired, both for the analysis and design of complex systems and for the validation of determinations made on theoretical models using analytical methods. In addition, the capacity to select and use a system structure, adapted to concrete applications in the field of industrial electronics and informatics, medical electronics and informatics, as well as computer technology and artificial intelligence, is being developed. The increasing complexity and diversity of electronic systems has triggered a process of approaching the design concerns of electronic circuits in the above mentioned areas related to computing technology, programmable or reconfigurable electronic systems.

A perspective area anchored in the ELA program of study is defined by the discipline of Robotics, which incorporates elements of artificial intelligence, automation, data and image processing.

Completing the field of electronics applied in the field of industrial electronics, medical electronics or robotics is also done by the 3D Graphics course which develops the skills of using techniques and methods of modeling, generation, visualization of three-dimensional objects and scenes.

The current curriculum has undergone a modern conceptual change, being a wide opening to the disciplines that serve the field of information technology: Software Engineering, Operating Systems, Databases, Internet Programming Technologies, these being included in the category of optional courses.

On the other hand, being familiar with the basics in the field of applied electronics, it is necessary to train the student in the sense of developing the skills and abilities to integrate this knowledge in an application (finished product), with the satisfaction of certain requirements. In other words, in addition to specialized electronics courses, commercial integration "tools" are needed to enable the development of applications in a world increasingly dominated by quality, competition and globalization, provided by Quality and Reliability courses. , Basics of Information Science, Management and Marketing.