Develop Your Electrical Circuit Solver in Python
- Description
- Curriculum
- FAQ
- Reviews
Welcome to one of the very few online courses that will teach you how to develop an electrical circuit solver!
Are you interested in the theory used in most circuit simulators and how to implement it yourself?
Are you an electrical engineering student/professional wishing to develop coding skills?
Would you like to switch to a software engineering career and start with a programming project linked to electrical engineering?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, this course is for you.
If you are a university student, you will find that this course is complementary to your curriculum.
You will discover Modified Nodal Analysis (MNA), a powerful method to solve electrical circuits. Leonhard Martin Wedepohl, a noted electrical engineering educator, emphasised that “the absence of this circuit analysis technique from many academic engineering courses is totally at variance with its widespread application in modern circuit simulation packages”. And here is where you can learn this awesome technique!
Please note that this course does not cover the development of a graphical interface for drawing electrical circuits. However, this may be your next project after completing this one!
In the theory part of this course, you will get the foundations to build a circuit solver both in time domain and frequency domain. Although the implementation only covers independent voltage sources, independent current sources and RLC elements, modelling other components will require minimal additional effort!
If you have never programmed in Python, don’t worry, we have dedicated a section to teach you how to code in Python as well as all the language concepts you need to complete this project! There are many exercises along the way before beginning the development of your circuit solver. These exercises will let you feel better ready for the real project.
You will start your program with a warmup challenge: build a DC solver in steady state. Once done, you will continue with the development of a frequency domain solver followed by a time domain solver.
During your adventure, you will learn an essential software engineering concept: version control. This will make it easier for you to monitor the progress of your development and avoid any loss of information if you screw things up or your program crashes at any time! In this course, you will use Git with GitHub (you will have to create a GitHub account -it’s free- to better understand and apply version control concepts).
The last section of this course focuses on improving the structure of your code and defining an appropriate output format for your end-user.
If, at the end of this course, you are keen to continue with this project and develop further functionalities, you will find many creative opportunities that will help you to expand your programming skills and, in addition, enable you to show up with great achievements to employers! If you need guidance, some improvement suggestions are listed in the very last lecture of this course.
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Introduction to Modified Nodal Analysis (MNA)Definition of a graph with an introduction to Nodal Analysis and Modified Nodal Analysis.
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3
MNA Basics - Example 1 - Part 1
Define the process to get the MNA system of equations and apply it to a simple circuit.
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4
MNA Basics - Example 1 - Part 2
Observations on the system of equations established in the previous video (MNA Basics - Example 1 - Part 1).
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5
MNA Basics - Example 2 - Part 1
Applying the process to get the MNA system of equations to a second circuit.
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MNA Basics - Example 2 - Part 2
Observations on the system of equations established in the previous video (MNA Basics - Example 2 - Part 1).
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7
Application of the MNA Principles - Part 1
Application of the MNA principles to a new circuit without writing down the equations one by one, using the observations made in the previous lectures.
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8
Application of the MNA Principles - Part 2
Application of the MNA principles to a second circuit.
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9
Application of the MNA Principles - Exercise Solution
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10
MNA Computational Formulation
Presentation of the MNA algorithm to implement later in this course.
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11
Calculation of Branch Voltages and Currents
How to get the branch voltages and currents after solving the MNA system of equations? Presentation of Approach 1.
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12
Incidence Matrix
Introduction of the incidence matrix and the two relevant equations involving this matrix.
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13
Branch Admittance Matrix and Complete Equation for Currents
Complete equation for currents with Approach 2, using the incidence matrix and the branch admittance matrix.
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14
LC Modelling in Time Domain - Trapezoid Area
Reminder of the trapezoid area formula to get comfortable with the proof of the trapezoidal rule.
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15
LC Modelling in Time Domain - Trapezoidal Rule
Proof of the trapezoidal rule.
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LC Modelling in Time Domain - Common Representation and Iterative Process
Presentation of the common representation of inductors and capacitors in time domain.
Description of the iterative process to solve LC circuits in time domain. -
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LC Modelling in Time Domain - Proof of the Inductor Model
Proof of the inductor model using the trapezoidal rule.
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LC Modelling in Time Domain - Proof of the Capacitor Model
Proof of the capacitor model using the trapezoidal rule.
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19
LC Modelling in Time Domain - Impact on the MNA Matrix Equation
Impact of the inductor and capacitor models on the MNA matrix equation.
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20
Exercise - Proof of the Nodal Analysis Formulation
This exercise should help you for the more complex proof of the MNA formulation.
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21
Presentation of the Proof of the Nodal Analysis Matrix Equation
Solution to the exercise presented in the previous lecture.
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22
Exercise - Proof of the MNA Formulation
Now you've seen the proof the nodal analysis system of equations, you are ready to try to establish the proof of the MNA formulation! Beware, it's more challenging!
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23
Presentation of the Proof of the MNA Formulation
Solution to the exercise presented in the previous lecture.
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24
Python Installation
Python Installation and Set Up.
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25
Code Editor and IDE
Presentation of common code editors and IDEs suitable for programming in Python.
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Getting Started with PyCharm
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27
Integers, Floats and Strings
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28
Lists
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29
Conditional Statements
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Loops - Part 1
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Loops - Part 2
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Exercises - Lists, Loops and Conditional Statements
Exercises to practice what we've covered so far.
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Exercises Solutions - Lists, Loops and Conditional Statements
Solution to the exercises presented in the previous lecture.
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34
Dictionaries - Part 1
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Dictionaries - Part 2
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Exercise - Dictionaries
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Functions - Part 1
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Functions - Part 2
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Functions - Part 3
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Exercises - Functions
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Functions - Solution to Exercise 1
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Functions - Solution to Exercise 2
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Object-Oriented Programming - Part 1
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Object-Oriented Programming - Part 2
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Object-Oriented Programming - Part 3
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Exercise - Object-Oriented Programming
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Object-Oriented Programming - Solution to the Exercise
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48
Files I/O
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49
Introduction to NumPy
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50
Introduction to Pandas
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51
Introduction to Matplotlib
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52
__name__ and __main__
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Virtual Environments
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54
Introduction
Advice before starting programming.
Presentation of the input format and some information on the proposed solution. -
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Program Structure
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Solution - Part 1 - Storing the Input Data
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Solution - Part 2 - Input Pre-processing
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Solution - Part 3 - Node Admittance Matrix
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Solution - Part 4 - Incidence Matrix and MNA Matrix
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Solution - Part 5 - RHS Vector and System Solution
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Solution - Part 6 - Branch Voltages and Currents
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62
Documentation and Arbitrary Nodes Labelling
