Abstract:

Electronic components, by their physical principles of operation, do not fundamentally differ from each other in analog or digital signal processing. They are distinguished by their characteristics, in fact, the emphasis is on electrical characteristics. This article is to address more specifically the study of the static and dynamic characteristics of the main electronic components with 2 and 3 pins. The work consists of making a circuit to test and plot the electrical characteristics of electronic components using NI myDAQ, a portable data acquisition (DAQ) device that uses NI LabVIEW-based software instruments on a PC. This circuit will allow students to measure, analyze and process physical signals acquired from electronic components and control simple processes anytime and anywhere. NI myDAQ is ideal for exploring electronics and for taking sensor measurements. The objective of our work is to develop a circuit which makes it possible to trace the electrical characteristics of electronic components. After making the circuit, we have developed programs in the LabView environment which allowed us to trace these different electrical characteristics, namely the current-voltage I-V and power-voltage P-V characteristics. We measured in an automated way, the current, the voltage, the power, the spectral response and plotted the curves of the different characteristics of a resistor, a diode, a Zener diode and a transistor. Our results show that the characteristics measured have almost the same appearance given by the manufacturer. The resulting device allows the student to characterize very easy the electronic components and to understand their behavior. NI myDAQ is a student-oriented device that can be used connected to a PC/laptop without any other power supply or additional resources to increase the usage area, in the laboratory or in their home environment, offering instruments such as oscilloscopes, function generators, digital multimeters, bode analyzers or dynamic signal analyzers. Therefore, based on the NI myDAQ device and the LabVIEW programming environment, the student can easily develop hands-on experiments based on their own concepts for electronic components in order to have better learning outcomes. Even though there are cheaper solutions on the market, such as Arduino-based platforms, the high-precision and high-performance instruments provided by NI myDAQ offers a better solution when high-precision and high-accuracy measurements are required (as in specialized laboratory works for students from the Applied Electronics study program).

The paper will show how NI myDAQ and LabVIEW can be used to design and develop a very useful learning device for and by students for the electronic components study, which can increase the attractiveness of the engineering domain and also the creativity of students.

Keywords:

Electronic components, Electrical characteristics, Modelling, NI-myDaq, LabVIEW.