GATE Syllabus - Instrumentation Engineering

Measurement Basics and Metrology

Static and dynamic characteristics of measurement systems. Standards and calibration. Error and uncertainty analysis, statistical analysis of data, and curve fitting. Linear and angular measurements -- Measurement of straightness, flatness, roundness and roughness.

Transducers, Mechanical Measurements, and Industrial Instrumentation

Transducers - elastic, resistive, inductive, capacitive, thermo-electric, piezoelectric, photoelectric, electro-mechanical, electro-chemical, and ultrasonic. Measurement of displacement, velocity (linear and rotational), acceleration, shock, vibration, force, torque, power, strain, stress, pressure, flow, temperature, humidity, viscosity, and density. Energy storing elements, suspension systems, and dampers.

Analog Electronics

Characteristics of diodes, BJTs, JFETs and MOSFETs -- Diode circuits -- Amplifiers -- single and multi-stage, feedback -- Frequency response -- Operational amplifiers - design, characteristic, linear and non-linear applications -- difference amplifiers -- instrumentation amplifiers -- precision rectifiers, I-to-V converters, active filters, oscillators, comparators, signal generators, wave shaping circuits.

Digital Electronics

Combinational logic circuits, minimization of Boolean functions -- IC families (TTL, MOS, CMOS), arithmetic circuits, multiplexer and decoders. Sequential circuits -- flip-flops, counters, shift registers. Schmitt trigger, timers, and multivibrators. Analog switches, multiplexers, S/H circuits. Analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters. Basics of computer organization and architecture. 8-bit microprocessor (8085), applications, memory, I/O interfacing, and microcontrollers.

Signals and Systems

Vectors and matrices -- Fourier series -- Fourier transforms -- Ordinary differential equations. Impulse and frequency responses of first and second order systems. Laplace transform and transfer function, convolution and correlation. Amplitude and frequency modulations and demodulations. Discrete time systems, difference equations, impulse and frequency responses -- Z-transforms and transfer functions -- IIR and FIR filters.

Electrical and Electronic Measurements

Measurement of R, L and C -- bridges and potentiometers. Measurement of voltage, current, power, power factor, and energy -- Instrument transformers -- Q meter, waveform analyzers. Digital volt-meters and multi-meters. Time, phase and frequency measurements -- Oscilloscope. Noise and interference in instrumentation.

Control Systems and Process Control

Principles of feedback -- transfer function, signal flow graphs. Stability criteria, Bode plots, root-loci, Routh and Nyquist criteria. Compensation techniques -- State space analysis. System components -- mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical and electronic -- Servos and synchros -- Stepper motors. On-off, cascade, P, PI, PID and feed-forward controls. Controller tuning and general frequency response.