Anechoic Chamber for antenna measurement facility helps in the characterization and high-quality experimental verification of the electromagnetically modelled antennas, RF and Microwave devices, MMIC circuits and systems. The major testing facilities for antenna measurement set are the Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) N9918A (30 kHz to 26 GHz) and an extensively built antenna and EMC test Anechoic Chamber that covers frequency from 700 MHz to 18 GHz. With this state-of-art facility, we aim at promoting research through partnerships with academic institutions, government laboratories and industries.

1. Anechoic Chamber (700 MHz to 18 GHz):

An anechoic chamber is an isolated cabin in which the walls, ceiling and floor are lined with an RF absorbent material to minimize reflections. The chamber facility at Microwave and Antenna Measurement Lab SENSE, VIT Chennai is a new facility created recently in 2017 to generate EM standard results for the antenna testing and EMC far-field measurements.

Features of the chamber:

Fully Shielded Anechoic Chamber

• Frequency Range: 700 MHz – 18 GHz
• Chamber Size : 7 x 3.5 x 3m
• Shielding Effectiveness :
  -110 dB upto 15 GHz dB to -90 dB upto 18 GHz
• Quite Zone: 1m
• Transmitting Antenna :
  • Pyramidal horn (600 MHz to 18 GHz),
  • Gain: 15 dB

• 3-Axis automatic positioned the system
• Absorbent performance:
  Reflected Power from Absorber: -40 dB
  5 Watt/in² or 775 Watt/m² Power Handling.
  Tested as per IEEE Standards
  Fire Retardant as per NRL 8093

Various Test Parameters:

• VSWR
• Return Loss
• Impedance
• Gain
• Axial Ratio
• Cross Polarization
• 2D E/H Radiation Pattern

Equipment:

• Frequency: 30 kHz to 26 GHz
• VNA interfaced software for automatic measurement & graph plotting.
• Fire alarm system
• Control room with VNA and Computer monitoring system

Scope of the consultancy work:

• Antenna design for the specific application
• Antenna selection for the specific application
• Layout recommendation
• Impedance matching
• Measurement of the integrated antenna using VNA and Radiation pattern in the anechoic chambers at VIT Chennai

List of Companies and Academic Institutions visited the lab for  professional test services with consultancy:

Contact Details:
Dean,
School of Electronics Engineering (SENSE)
VIT University Chennai Campus
Vandalur – Kelambakkam Road,
Chennai 600 127.
Ph: 91 44 3993 1026 (Direct)
FAX: 91 44 3993 2555
email: deancc.sense@vit.ac.in

The Advanced Networks Laboratory is established with the aim of providing hands on experience to the various networking concepts studied by the undergraduate and postgraduate students related to Computer Communication and Wireless Networks. The students are trained in the laboratory to enhance their practical knowledge and to provide solutions to real time issues. The lab is equipped with latest state-of-the art software/ hardware tools which facilitate the students/ research scholars to develop protocols, implement test beds, and to carry out evaluation of various performance parameters of a scalable network. The lab is also equipped to provide WSN based real time solutions for various applications.

Hardware Facilities:

• Benchmark LAN-T Trainer Kit
• Benchmark WLAN-T  Trainer Kit
• Benchmark Netsys-T  Trainer Kit
• National Instruments  – CompactRio WSN Package which includes 16  Bit Analog Input Module, 16 Bit Analog Output Module, DI/DO C Series Module, 4-Ch 24bit Thermocouple Input WSN Node,  Programmable Controller Integrated WSN Gateway,  4-Ch Programmable RTD,  Programmable   RS-232 Serial WSN Node,  CRIO GPS Mobile Module,  CRIO GSM Mobile Module,  CRIO Zigbee Module
• OBU (On Board Equipment) LocoMate™ Standard 201 classic unit.
• RSU (Road Side Equipment) LocoMate™ 200 classic RSU
• SENSEnuts- WSN motes with IEEE 802.15.4 compliant transceivers

Software Tools:

• NetSim Version 10
• Network Simulator 2
• Tracegraph
• Network Simulator 3
• Wire shark
• Cisco Packet Tracer
• LAN – Trainer Software
• NI CompactRIO associated S/W
• SENSEnuts GUI Application

The Advanced VLSI Design Laboratory is established with the objective of providing the undergraduates, postgraduates and PhD students with an in-depth knowledge of Full-custom and Semi-custom IC Design. It offers basic and advanced facilities in the area of VLSI device modelling and simulation using industry-standard Cadence® EDA design tool (60 full suite licenses available) supported by high performance hardware tools.

Software Tools

Analog Integrated Circuit Design Tools

• Virtuoso® AMS Designer Environment
• Virtuoso® Analog Design Environment – XL
• Virtuoso® Simulation Environment
• Virtuoso® Layout Suite – GXL1

Digital Integrated Circuit Design Tools

• Genus® RTL compiler,
• Cadence® InCyte Chip Estimator XL
• Cadence® Simulation Analysis Environment (SimVision)
• IncisiveT® Enterprise Simulator
• EncounterT® Library Characterizer- XL
• EncounterT® Digital Implementation System -XL
• EncounterT® Low Power GXL Option EDI91
• EncounterT® Advanced Node GXL option
• EncounterT® Mixed Signal GXL Option
• Cadence® SiP Digital SI – XL
• Allegro® PCB Designer
• Cadence® SiP Layout – XL
• Allegro® PCB SI – XL
• Innovus® layout implementation XL
• Liberate® library characterizer XL

In Analog Electronic Circuits Laboratory, students carry-out experiments by designing circuits using Spice simulation tools as well as implementation and testing of analog circuits involving discrete components and ICs such as diodes, BJTs, MOSFETs and Op-Amps. The student projects that involve analog electronic circuits are also built and tested in this laboratory. The hardware and software facilities available are:

Hardware Facilities:

• Analog Discovery Kit
• Spectrum Analyzers
• Digital Storage Oscilloscopes
• Dual Power Supply
• Multiple Power Supply
• Analog Oscilloscopes
• Function Generators
• Analog IC Testers
• LCR meter
• Zealtech Workbenches with 20 experiment boards

Software Tools:

• ORCAD® PCB University Suite
• MultiSim
• LTspice

Communication Engineering Lab is one of the State-of-art laboratories in the school imparting fundamental knowledge related to analog and digital modulation concepts using software simulation tools and hardware implementations. Experiments are streamlined on transceiver design, modulation and coding techniques involved in wireless systems for communication.

Hardware Facilities:

• Signal Analyzer
• Digital Storage Oscilloscope
• Signal Generator
• Spectrum Analyzer
• USRP Transceiver with LabVIEW Software Kit
• Pulse Generator
• Analog/Digital Oscilloscope
• Audio Output Power Meter
• Microcontroller based Function Generator
• TDM PCM Transmitter Receiver Trainer Kits
• Frequency Multiplexer and De-Multiplexer Trainer Kits
• Delta Modulation Demodulation Trainer Kits
• Data Formatting and Carrier Modulation Transmitter and Carrier Demodulation Reformatting Receiver Trainer Kits
• LCR Meters
• Analog Modulator and Demodulator Trainer Kits
• Sampling and Reconstruction Trainer Kits
• Digital RF Communication Module
• PC

Software Tools:

• MATLAB R2016a
• LabVIEW 2015 (32-bit)

The Digital Signal Processing (DSP) Laboratory is established to give hands-on learning experience in various fields of signal processing through algorithm development and implementation through hardware and software experiments. Various practical experiments taught are an overview of discrete-time signal and systems in time and frequency domain, sampling and reconstruction of analog signals, digital filter design, and implementation, digital audio effects, spectrum estimation, and fast Fourier algorithms. The laboratory offers students to practice real-time signal processing by showing them to the use of some educational DSP kits with real-time capability. Facilities at DSP laboratory include the following usage of students’ activities such as Project-based Learning, Research-based Learning, Capstone Project, etc.

Hardware Facilities:

• TI – DSK KIT TMS320C6713
• Function Generators 1MHz
• Cathode Ray Oscilloscopes 30 MHz
• NI USB-6211 Bus-Powered M-series Multifunction DAQ
• NI USB-6363 X-series DAQ
• Virtex-5 SXT-ML506 DSP Development Boards
• DM355 DAVINCI Digital Video Evaluation Modules
• Scientech 2355 Electroencephalograph Trainers
• TMDSSK 3358 ARM Sitara AM335X Starter Kits
• BEAGLE –XM, BEAGLE Bone Boards
• OMAP L-138/6748 LCDK Development Kit
• Sennheiser headsets with Mic

Software Tools:

• TI-Code Composer Studio v 3.0
• Speech Corpus – LDC93S1W and LDC93S9
• TI –Code Composer studio v5.0
• MatlabR2019a with DSP Tool Kit  and Signal Processing Tool Kit

The objective of this laboratory is to establish a strong understanding and to consolidate the basic principles of digital electronics by performing rigorous experiments from gate level to system level. The experimental set up helps the students to design and test digital circuits in hardware using FPGAs and simulation analysis through software tools.

Hardware Facilities:

• Digital IC trainer kits
• IC testers
• Cathode ray oscilloscopes
• Analog cum digital IC trainer kits
• Xilinx Spartan 3E FPGA kits
• Altera DE2 115 developer boards
• 5MP Camera Interface Card
• KINECT (MSXB1045 : XBOX 360)
• LENOVA systems
• Software-defined radio kit and AD-FMC-COMMS@-EBZ Communication FMC cards
• HARDWARE ZED Boards
• AD-FMC-COMMS@-EBZ Communication FMC cards

Software Tools:

• Xilinx ISE V10.1
• Altera Quarters II

Embedded systems lab-I is software related lab for building processors that deal with real-time processing environment for variety of applications which includes automobiles and other embedded systems demanding real-time processing and making deterministic real-time execution pattern. A real-time requirement is one that specifies that an embedded system must respond to a certain event within a strictly defined time. The state-of-art RTOS namely Application Common Operating Environment (AppCOE) is an asset to this lab comprised of VxWorks, Nucleus, ThreadX and pSOS. The lab also deploys Keil RTX a royalty-free, deterministic Real-Time Operating System designed for ARM Cortex-M series devices. It allows in creating programs that simultaneously perform multiple functions and helps to create applications which are better structured and more easily maintained.
This laboratory caters to the needs of MTech Students who are exposed to the various framework of common architecture that promotes interoperability and cross-platform capabilities among systems and devices. It is built on the powerful open-source Eclipse-based framework. Embedded C and C++ applications can be standardized on AppCOE to allow the applications to interoperate and run seamlessly on a single platform.

Hardware Facilities:

• MSP430F development kits
• Xilinx Zynq boards with image processing module & RTOS enabled (camera interface)
• Serial to USB converters
• Discrete and Analog Sensors
• DSO1052
• STM32F0 development boards
• TI Development Boards(TI TIVA)
• Intel Galileo Development Board
• Intel curie Development Board

Software Tools:

• RTOS software compatible with VxWorks, ThreadX, Nucleus and PSOS
• Keil IDE

Embedded systems lab caters to the needs of complete embedded systems solution through the aspects of hardware-software co-design. The laboratory focuses on the reliability-aware design, optimization methodologies and system-level exploration tools for high-performance Embedded Systems and also it provides students with hands-on experience by providing opportunity to build, programme, test and debug processors kits. The facilities include various solid state sensors, top notch processor kits and compilers to work on their practical training, research and project work.

Hardware Facilities:

• ARM Cortex M0 development boards from Nuvoton and NXP
• ARM Cortex M4 kits from TI and STM
• Beaglebone black
• Arduino UNO
• Raspberry Pi 2 & 3
• MARS BOARD Evaluation kit
• Compact Rio and cDAC
• Various communication modules like Bluetooth, Zigbee, Wi-Fi, NFC and CAN
• Display varying from simple LCD to touch screen modules
• Serial to USB and HDMI – VGA converters
• Discrete analog and digital Sensors
• Colibri T20 and Colibri evaluation board
• IR JPEG Colour Camera Interface module
• TTL JPEG Camera with NTSC video
• Speech recognition module –EASYVR
• Multichannel Electrochemical workstation model Zive MP5
• DSO1052B – 50MHz 2Ch 1GS/s 16K Memory Colour DSO
• DSOX2002A – 70MHz 2Ch 2GS/s 100K Memory Infiniivision MEGA ZOOM Scope
• Digital Multimeter 3 1/2”
• Mixed Domain oscilloscope
• DC Regulated Power Supply
• Mixed domain Oscilloscope – 1GHz with built in Spectrum analyzer of 3 GHz

Hardware troubleshooting lab is aimed at providing a full-fledged hardware troubleshooting training to electronics engineering students on various commercial gadgets. The scope of operation of this laboratory is to let students to diagnose the fault locations and to repair the same. The Hardware Trouble shooting Laboratory is equipped with advanced Prototype Multi-layer PCB machine and SMD soldering station. In addition, the students receive training to design, fabricate printed circuit boards (PCBs) and troubleshoot the defective PCBs as well. This laboratory envisages to enhancing their hardware troubleshooting skills which help equip themselves in the industry perspectives.

Hardware Facilities:

• Oscilloscope – 30 MHz
• Dual Source DC Regulated Power Supply 0-30V, 0-2A
• Function Generator
• Digital Multimeter
• LCR Meter – Digital
• Decade Resistance Box (6 or 5 Dial Rotary Type) 1Ohm-1MOhm
• Decade Capacitance Box (6 or 5 Dial Rotary Type) 100picof-10microf
• Decade Inductance Box (6 or 5 Dial Rotary Type) – 0.1 mH-10H
• Center Tapped Step Down Transformer Kit 12-0-12V – 5A
• Lens – Magnifier
• 100 W Stereo 2.1 Audio Amplifier Board Kit with Bass, Treble, Volume + Connector
• HiFi 200 W RMS Stereo Audio Amplifier Kit Board, Transistor Board Power Amplifier
• 400 Watts MOSFET Subwoofer amplifier
• HiFi 250 W RMS Stereo Audio Amplifier Kit Board, Transistor Board Power Amplifier
• 500 watts Inverter Card, Inverter Board, PCB
• Efficient LT1083 Linear Adjustable Regulated Power Supply Finished Board
• 6 volt dc emergency light circuit plate with low cut & charging indicator
• Dainty PF615B Speakers
• Dainty FR0610 Speakers
• Dainty DSW06R Speakers
• High Power SMD LED BOARD 12V DC ultra-bright SMD Led, 12 volt led
• PCB Design tools
• PCB General Purpose circuit Boards
• SMD Soldering Station

The development of Optical fiber Communication systems and networking technology revolutionized the society, allowing first low-cost, high-quality voice communications and high-speed internet. The laboratory facilitates basic and advanced experiments for UG and PG level. The lab facilitates both simulation and hardware implementation. Students also learn the performance of various modulation schemes and measuring equipment through experimentation. The laboratory promotes UG level projects, PG Research-Based Learning, and PhD level projects. The lab also supports the experiments on photonics integrated circuits, free-space optical communication, holography & coherent information processing, and optical communication &networks. The learning happens through hands-on experience by both Hardware and Software listed below.

Hardware facilities:

1. Optical Fiber Communication Trainer Kits
2. WDM kit
3. EDFA kit
4. Optical Time Domain Reflectometer
5. LASER Module
6. Detector (PIN & Avalanche) Module
7. Passive optical Components Module
8. Fiber Optic Network Module
9. Four-channel LASER/Detector Module
10. Fiber spools
11. Digital oscilloscopes and Laser Power Meters

Software facilities:

1. Rsoft OptSim
2. Lumerical
3. Matlab

Internet of Things Laboratory focuses on implementations of end-to-end IoT systems, with a variety of embedded platforms and state-of-the-art wireless communication and networking protocols (including 6LoWPAN, LoRaWAN, Zigbee, CoAP, MQTT), and cloud platforms for sensor data storage. The IoT lab complements the Advanced Networking Laboratory and Embedded System Laboratory for advancement in the protocol evaluation and implementation. The lab provides students with hands-on experience in embedded hardware platforms for data acquisition, and IoT cloud platforms to perform data analytics using the Machine learning and Deep Learning algorithms. This lab aims to build Intelligent systems which is capable of exploring the power of IoT by providing the computing and connectivity options to build intelligence to the machine. Industry 4.0 heavily relies on the knowledge gained through these laboratory experiments.

Hardware Facilities

Computing

• High-Performance Computing Cluster facility(HPC) – Dell Power edge server – Intel Xeon E5-2620 v4 2.1GHz as an IoT server
• ARM® mbed™ IoT Device Platform
• Raspberry Pi 3 Boards
• Intel Edison/Genuino Development boards
• Arduino Boards
• TI CC3200 Launchpads
• TI CC2650 Launchpads
• Odroid XU4 Development boards
• Humming board -pro with IMX4pro
• Mbot Ranger – trasformable STEM Educational Robot
• HMI Touch panel Interface

IoT Protocols and Communication modules

• Cypress PSoC4 – BLE Development Kits
• TI CC2650 Sensor Tag : Bluetooth, ZigBee and 6LoWPAN Developer Kit
• ST Microelectronics L152Re & SX1276 Semtech LoRa modules :- LoraWan Development kit
• GSM and GPS Modules

Sensors and Accessories

• Electrical, Electrochemical, and optical Sensors
• Lithium Polymer Batteries
• Multimeters
• Tektronix MDO4104C DSO
• Myo Gesture control armband

Software packages

• Contiki OS
• Wireless Stacks (Zigbee, BLE, 6LoWPAN, LoraWAN, etc.,)
• Arduino IDE
• Mbed IDE
• Energia IDE for TI platforms

Accessible Cloud Platforms:

• IBM Watson (Exclusive access to VIT)
• AWS (Exclusive access to VIT)
• Thingspeak
• Microsoft Azure
• ARM® mbed™ cloud IoT Device Platform

Microcontrollers and its applications Laboratory enable the students to learn, troubleshoot and to deliver an optimal solution for real-time problems by providing a solid foundation of programming microcontrollers and microprocessors with the external device interfaces. This laboratory is equipped with the state-of-art equipment and modern Microcontrollers & Microprocessors kit which enables to learn and implement the theoretical concepts pertaining to the Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) and Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) architectures. Students are exposed to the latest 32-bit ARM Processor, 16-bit PIC Microcontroller besides the traditional 8-bit Intel 8051 microcontroller architecture and various Integrated Development Environment (IDE) tools. This laboratory is extensively used for conducting lab sessions and to carry out Project-Based Learning and Research-Based Learning activities by the students.

Hardware:

• NXP LPC2148 ARM7 Embedded Board
• STR912 ARM9 Development Board
• MSP430 Microcontroller Development Tool Kit
• MSP430 Solar Energy Harvesting Development Tools Kit
• MSP430 Based GPS Solution Kit
• MSP430 Wireless Development Tool Kit
• PIC Advanced Development Board
• Single-Chip 89C51ED2 With USB Communication Trainer Kit
• AM3359 Industrial Communication Engine Kit
• RF-Zigbee GPS & Bluetooth Development Tools Kit
• C2000 LaunchPad Kit
• CC1120-RF Development Kit
• CC2530 Zigbee Development Kit
• Agilent 16801A-34ch Logic Analyzer
• Intelligent Universal Programmer
• Stepper Motor Interface
• Traffic Light interface
• 16×2 LCD Interface
• 4×4 Matrix Hex Keypad Interface
• 4-Digit 7-Segment LED Display Interface
• 6-Digit 7-Segment LED Display with Keyboard Interface
• Dual DAC Interface
• DAC for ADC & temp Sensor interface
• Xilinx XUPV5 Virtex-5 Board  – Microcontroller lab

Software:

• Keil µVision IDE for C51 Kit
• IAR Workbench
• MPLAB IDE
• CCS Compiler

Microcontrollers and its Applications Laboratory

The Microwave and Antenna Measurement Laboratory provides the resources for the conduction of experiments on various RF and Microwave devices for undergraduate and postgraduate students. The lab is equipped with high-quality hardware components and EM simulation tools like ANSYS HFSS, ANSYS Maxwell, Microwave Office (AWR) and Intellisuite for RF MEMS modelling.  The state-of-art facilities in the Microwave and Antenna Measurement lab help the students to practice the characterization and device development which enables them to get trained with the practices followed in RF & Telecom companies, Embedded system industries and Radar systems.

Gunn Diodes wave guide Trainer Bench (X-Band)List of Hardware Equipment:

• Klystron based waveguide Trainer Bench (X-Band)
• Pattern and Gain Characteristics of Horn Antenna Set Up (X-Band)
• Micro Strip Components Trainer Kit (X-Band and S-Band)
• Antenna Trainer Kits
• Microwave passive components devices Circulators, Directional couplers, Magic Tees etc.,) 
• Power Sensor Meters: L-band and 30 MHz to 18 GHz
• Vector Network Analyser (30 kHz to 26 GHz) (Agilent N9918A)
• Waveguide setupAnechoic chamber: (600 MHz to 18 GHz)

2. List of EM Softwares:

1. Ansys HFSS V.16-100  Licenses
2. HFSS Academic Teaching HF-5 Tasks Software
3. MWO-449-UV: Microwave Office University
4. Intellisuite for RF MEMS modeling (v.8)

The Micro and Nano Devices Laboratory facilities have been set-up to support the academic programmes at the undergraduate (UG) and the postgraduate (PG) level as well as for research activities of doctoral research scholars. The laboratory houses facilities for silicon and glass micromachining for realizing miniature devices as well as synthesis of novel nanomaterials by wet chemical routes along with characterization techniques for investigating physical and electrical properties.

Hardware Facilities:

• Microcontroller based Electrochemical Discharge Machining Set-up
• Servo-controlled XYZ Motion System for ECDM
• Pulsed Power Supply
• DC regulated Power Supply
• Digital Analytical Weighing Balance
• Metallurgical Microscope
• Tip Sonicator
• Ultrasonic Cleaner
• Hot-air Oven
• Hot-plate
• Magnetic Stirrers
• High Spin Research Centrifuge
• Programmable Spin-coater
• Autoclave Vessels
• Chemical Island Worktable
• High Resolution Optical Microscope with Measurement Analysis
• Keithley 2450-EC (Electrochemical Lab System)

Software:

• Intellisuite® 9.1 Complete Suite IntelliFab
• 3D Builder
• Blueprint
• Parametric Designer
• Exposure
• AnisE
• BioMEMS
• RECIPE
• IntelliEtch
• SYNPLE
• TEM w/Piezo Analysis and SME
• Associated Utilities
• COMSOL Multiphysics- Semiconductor and AC/DC Modules

The Semiconductor Devices laboratory is designed to nurture basic level practical courses such as Electron Devices, Electrical and Electronic Circuits and Hardware troubleshooting as part of their curriculum requirements. This is one of the sought-after laboratories for circuit branch students.

Hardware Facilities:

• Cathode Ray Oscilloscopes (Scientific)
• Function generators (Scientific)
• Regulated Power supplies-Dual Supply
• Digital Multimeters
• Decade Inductance Box
• Decade Capacitance Box
• Voltmeter and Ammeter
• Decade Resistance box
• DELL Computer
• LCR METER

The VLSI Circuit Design laboratory aims to produce trained professional engineers on par with industry standards and also to significantly contribute to the design aspects of VLSI Design and Device Modelling. The laboratory is equipped with the latest IC design tools and sophisticated hardware facilities which help students to learn the required skills thoroughly. The laboratory caters to the need of the Undergraduate (UG) and Postgraduate (PG) students and Doctoral students as well.

Hardware Facilities:

• DE2 FPGA Board
• FPGA Application Model With Proto Board
• FPGA Multifunction Evaluation System
• FPGA Spartan 6 with pmod pack
• 5 MP Camera interface card
• Traffic light interface card
• Digital I/O interface card

Software Tools:

• Xilinx® ISE14.1-System edition
• Altera® Quartus-II 11.1
• SProcess and SDE
• SDevice
• Svisual and Inspect
• SWB
• Cadence tools (University Bundle)
• Tanner® –Hipher simulation Tool
• S-Edit, W-Edit
• T-Spice and Verilog-A
• L- edit base DRC Std
• LVS Std
• Extract Std.SPR
• Interactive DRC node
• Node Highlighting
• DXF
• Gen
• SDL