Introduction
The ENTC curriculum makes many pathways available to the undergraduate students. A pathway is a combination of course modules that gives knowledge and skills for an undergraduate to undertake professional engineering or research work in the particular subfield within the general areas of electronics, communication, and allied fields. a student would usually take a few such pathways during the undergraduate period. E.g., a student taking the course modules in the Electronic Product Development pathway will gain the knowledge and skills to develop electronic products
There are nine such pathways:
- Electronic Product Design
- Integrated Circuit (IC) Design
- Reconfigurable Electronics
- Embedded Systems
- Internet of Things (IoT)
- Communications
- Networking
- Systems Theory and Engineering
- Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)
- Robotics and Automation
Electronic Product Design
IC Design
Reconfigurable Electronics
Embedded Systems
Embedded systems are computing systems that address a specific application, such as the simple brains in a car, television, smart phones, or a medical electronic device like a patient monitor. Embedded processes are more ubiquitous, running in to hundreds of billions, and application-specific in comparison with general purpose processors used in computers. Consumer electronics, industrial automation, medical electronic devices, and home automation extensively invariably use embedded systems. The advances in manufacturing technologies coupled with decreasing cost in hardware has led to the wide adoption of embedded systems. This pathway of study gives skills and knowledge on embedded systems electronic circuits design, firmware (software that drives the embedded system) development, and security in embedded systems.
After following this pathway, students can start their own organizations for embedded system design and manufacturing or secure employment in embedded system design or electronic design and automation organizations.
Internet of Things (IoT)
Internet of things, refer to a collection of electronic devices with sensors (and actuators) that are connected together for exchange of information and collaboration through the to the Internet (or some other network). IoT currently finds storing applications in industrial automation (Industry 4.0), home and building automation, and environmental monitoring, to name a few areas. It is also a futuristic paradigm with a possibility of hundreds of billions of devices collaborating to enhance our day-to-day life.
Electronics and telecommunication are the two key technologies that make IoT possible. In addition, students will learn the protocols (sets of rules used for communication), software stacks, and deployment strategies, and cybersecurity in relation to IoT. Students will benefit from following this pathway in parallel with the embedded systems pathway.
After following this pathway, students can start their own organizations for IoT design and manufacturing or secure employment in IoT design or electronic design and automation organizations.
Communications
Systems Theory and Engineering
The focus of systems theory and engineering (ST&E) is on the interrelationship and integration of the complex system functions. In this respect, a few key examples include control systems, communication systems, social networks, and financial systems. Therefore, ST&E requires a broad understanding of the engineering and other allied sciences and their mathematics along with the integration of these disciplines. To be specific, ST&E encompasses design and analysis tools and techniques which can be decomposed into elements of systems integrating physics, organizational structure and information flow. Understanding of each of these elements is of equal importance to the discipline of ST&E. Analytical tools of paramount importance to the systems engineer include statistics, machine learning, optimization theory, information theory, matrix algebra, numerical analysis, control theory, probability theory and stochastic processes, and signal processing. Each of these mathematical tools provides for the construction of integrated system models to support the holistic design and analysis of the systems.
The students, who successfully follow the ST&E track, will be able secure employment in various organizations- machine learning, data science, societal networking, insurance, and banking organizations to name a few. Moreover, having armed with the above skills, the students will also be able to secure higher education opportunities with prestigious graduate schools in the world as well.
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Computer vision enables machines to attempt to see as human beings do. Pattern recognition (PR), popularly known as machine learning, automatically recognizes patterns (regularities) in data. Current deep learning (DL) techniques from a subset of pattern recognition. Currently, PR and DL are the predominant technologies that drive computer vision. They have applications in signal processing, bioinformatics, natural language processing, finance, and many other fields. After following this intriguing pathway, students reach world’s most renowned conferences, and secure employment in machine learning, data science, and computer vision organizations. Many obtain higher studies opportunities in well-known graduate schools.