An Undergraduate Intern's Experience With Industrial Instrumentation And The Effect On Teaching

Abstract

A simulation of the Time Keeping System(TKS) on the Global Positioning System satellite was developed to duplicate the characteristics of the hardware. This software aided in the design and testing of the hardware. This paper discusses the instrumentation and the testing of the TKS hardware and associated software by an undergraduate engineering student. It includes the problems she had, how she changed the simulation to match the hardware, and how this experience helped further her Engineering education.The TKS consisted of a hybrid analog/digital phase locked loop controlling a Voltage Controlled Crystal Oscillator, with an atomic clock reference. The engineering development model and the final hardware/software combination had minor differences. The Student had to design the tests, the test setup, and run the tests on a system accurate to one second in thirty-one centuries.The undergraduate student's internship experience at ITT not only helped her in her studies the following year, but allowed her instructor to observe the development of an Electrical Engineering student, between her sophomore and Junior year of college, in an actual industrial environment. This resulted in a modification of the teaching techniques used by the instructor in classes taken by sophomore engineering students.