E-Paper
Sense and ability
Why instrumentation engineering? Most of the investment and improvements in the next 50 years will be in ‘sensorisation’ of all technologies ranging from bio-medical instruments to space vehicles.
Instrumentation and control engineering can be referred to as a ‘mixture’ of different subjects that can be the launch pad for many careers. That’s what spurred Ujjayan Sengupta — with a CGPA (cumulative grade point average, an evaluation and ranking method) score of 8.81 in first year — to move from manufacturing to instrumentation at the Indian Institute of Engineering (IIT), Kharagpur.
“At IIT Kharagpur, instrumentation engineering is a mix of electrical and electronics engineering. This allows you to diversify into a lot of fields. It gives you many options. It’s a stepping stone to many areas,” says Sengupta, who worked with Bharat Petroleum refinery, Mumbai, as instrument officer, maintenance, till June this year and is currently an MBA candidate at IIT Bombay’s SJM School of Management.
Sengupta says that instrumentation engineers’ wider knowledge base gives them an edge over their mechanical or electrical counterparts in a plant. “You work with pretty intellectual, stimulating stuff. You design systems and you have to know how the processes work,” he says.
Indeed, instrumentation engineering is an inter-disciplinary branch that includes ingredients from electrical, chemical, electronics as well as computer engineering.
Dr Smriti Srivastava, associate head, department of instrumentation and control engineering, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Delhi, says, “Till last year, our instrumentation engineers used to be the first to get placed (before their counterparts in other branches) because employers wanted them for their wide knowledge base. They have knowledge of hardware as well as software.” This year, the slowdown has affected the placement scene, she adds.
Instrumentation and control engineers design, manufacture and fix snags in devices or systems that are used to measure or control physical quantities such as temperature, pressure and flow. They step in wherever ‘sensing’ of physical quantities is required and work in power plants, chemical plants, manufacturing facilities, oil refineries, the steel industry as well as drug makers and software and hardware companies, to name a few avenues.
Prof. S Sen, co-ordinator for the instrumentation programme at IIT Kharagpur’s electrical engineering department, says this field has wide applications, including in the VLSI (very large scale integration) and chip design industry. “VLSI is an emerging area (to which instrumentation engineers can contribute). There are very small-sized sensors that can be planted into your body.
These have an electrical portion and a mechanical portion. Instrumentation engineers get specialised training to work on these,” says Prof. Sen.
Instrumentation engineers have very focused, specific jobs, he says, though he concedes that electrical engineers have more opportunities.
Yet, if you still want to know why you should opt for instrumentation engineering, Prof. Sen reaffirms the wide-base point. “They (students) get wide exposure to different fields,” he says. “Most of the investment and improvements in the next 50 years will be in ‘sensorisation’ of all technologies ranging from bio-medical instruments to space vehicles. The past 50 years were of ‘informationisation’ (IT etc). The next 50 will be about ‘sensing’.”
what’s it about?
An offshoot of electrical engineering, instrumentation engineering is the study, design, manufacture and maintenance of devices or systems that are used to measure or control physical quantities such as temperature, pressure and flow.
“Engineering education started with basic branches such as civil, mechanical etc,” points out Dr Smriti Srivastava, associate head, department of instrumentation and control engineering, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Delhi. “Advancement in electrical and mechanical engineering led to the emergence of instrumentation engineering.”
Clock Work
The average day of an instrumentation engineer at an oil refinery:
8 am: Check systems complaints against the instruments. Start trouble-shooting. Ask technicians to replace faulty instruments or repair them
12.30 pm: Lunch
1 pm: Meeting with the boss to discuss a project of installing new system/instruments
2 pm: Come back to plant. Follow up on the morning’s job and look at new complaints. Work out plans for implementation of the new automation system
4 pm: Pack up for the day
However, you might get a call even at midnight if there is a snag in the system at the plant
The Payoff
Initially, the median pay of instrumentation engineers is Rs 1 lakh to 2.2 lakh a year. At IIT Kharagpur, the average pay of a graduate — regardless of the branch — was Rs 7.7 lakh a year in 2007-08
Skills
. Must be good at maths and physics
. Skilled at handling instruments and software
. Leadership skills
. Ready to trouble-shoot
How do i get there?
Take science with physics, chemistry and maths at the Plus Two level. Instrumentation engineering is available as BTech or BE programmes, entry to which is normally through a written test.
Institutes like BITS Pilani offer it with electronics, as BE (Hons) electronics and instrumentation
Pros & Cons
. You have a wide knowledge base
. Highly responsible role — if the instrumentation system fails, the whole plant will
grind to a halt
. Not a great many jobs yet
. Your health could be affected because of high noise and temperature levels at
manufacturing plants
Institutes & urls
. IIT Kharagpur
www.iitkgp.ac.in
. Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, New Delhi
www.nsit.ac.in
. NIT Tiruchirapalli, Jalandhar
www.nitt.edu
http://nitj.ac.in
Some institutes offer degrees in electronics and instrumentation, such as:
. Birla Institute of Technology & Science
www.bits-pilani.ac.in
Wide knowledge base gets them the jobs
An expert on the prospects of instrumentation engineers
Give us some examples of instrumentation engineering — apart from an AC’s thermostat ?
Instrumentation engineering is the engineering specialisation focused on the principle and operation of measuring instruments used in design and configuration of automated systems in electrical, pneumatic domains, etc.
Automatic control of the parameters of a chemical reactor by robots is a good example of instrumentation and control.
Nowadays, robots can even perform heart surgery, which is a good example of medical instrumentation. Robots even help reduce sea pollution as they can go underwater. Fuzzy logic control of the washing machine is a current example. The LCD TV and the DVD are advancements of instrumentation engineering.
Every power plant has a control room, which is all about instrumentation and control.
Then there are sensors and transducers, such as those used for alerting you about the water level in overhead water tanks. The car’s auto-locking system and anything run with a remote control is instrumentation and control engineering.
What are the job options for instrumentation engineers? Which industries absorb them?
Instrumentation and control engineers typically work for industries with automated processes, such as chemical or manufacturing plants, with the goal of improving system productivity, reliability, safety, optimisation and stability. The control of processes is one of the main branches of applied instrumentation.
Automation plays an increasingly important role in the global economy and in daily experience. Engineers strive to combine automated devices with mathematical and organisational tools to create complex systems for a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities.
Job options are good. Instrumentation engineers work in software firms like HCL and TCS, as well as hardware companies. Other employers include Larsen & Toubro, ABB (Asea Brown Boveri), Siemens, Texas Instruments, National Instruments, Bechtel, Fluor Daniel, Foster Wheeler and even American Express. In the public sector, there are EIL, BHEL, NTPC, SAIL, GAIL, Indian Oil Corporation, and ONGC.
Till last year, our instrumentation engineers used to be the first to get placed (as compared to their counterparts in other branches) because employers want them for their wide knowledge base.
They have knowledge of hardware as well as software. They can get into hardware or software jobs or ones involving both hardware and software. This year, the placement scenario is different due to the recession.
Dr Smriti Srivastava Interviewed by Rahat Bano
