Oscilloscope upgrade at the University of Sydney

When the University of Sydney’s School of Physics was recently reviewing and upgrading the assets in its labs, Rohde & Schwarz’s R&S RTB2000 and R&S RTM3000 oscilloscopes stood out due to a combination of state-of-the-art technology and ease of use.

The school’s previous oscilloscopes have now been replaced by 95 units of R&S RTB2000 oscilloscopes and three units of R&S RTM3000 oscilloscopes for student use. The R&S RTB2000 includes not only an oscilloscope but also a logic and protocol analyser, waveform and pattern generator and digital voltmeter. Its 8-in-1 integration saves both space and costs for the school.

The R&S RTB2000 is operated like a smartphone and is said to be the only oscilloscope in its class to offer the highest resolution of a 10-bit vertical resolution. The 10.1″ capacitive touch screen allows the user to conveniently zoom in and out to see the signals in details. Reports can be efficiently created with the handy and flexible screen annotation tool. With the 10-bit A/D converter, waveforms are sharper and it can capture signals more precisely and make measurements accurately.

In the university syllabus, students are taught to understand time and frequency domain signals. The FFT function of R&S RTB2000 can be activated easily and it can transform the signals in real time, much faster than other instruments of the same class. The ease of use of FFT with the similarity to spectrum analyser control, allowing automated adjustment of time domain capture to match the FFT requirement, helps students to understand the correlation of time domain samples and how they are mapped into respective frequency component bins.

In order to help students learn the basic of signal processing, a special education mode is introduced which limits the ability to use automatic measurements and autoset that are found in all modern test equipment. This challenges the student to locate and measure the signal in a manual way, enhancing their understanding of how the instrument works.

“It is important to equip our labs with instruments that offer precision measurement, modern interface and technology, diverse functionalities and smart operating concept — all in a small footprint,” said Peter Verwayen, Laboratory Manager at the University of Sydney. “The oscilloscopes from Rohde & Schwarz are intuitive and easy to use, so they are the perfect tool to teach our students how to measure with an oscilloscope and complete their laboratory work without worrying about the functionality. Moreover, knowing that there is a strong local team of technically competent post-sales and service personnel gives us the confidence and a peace of mind.”

Please follow us and share on Twitter and Facebook. You can also subscribe for FREE to our weekly newsletter and bimonthly magazine.