Hardware Workshop and Laboratory (HWLab)

The HWLab is a faculty workshop that provides both staff and students with space and facilities for pottering, tinkering and tuning of embedded systems.

More about us

What we do

The HWLab provides its facilities to the Embedded Security Lab, the Network Traffic Monitoring Lab, the Intelligent Embedded Systems Laboratory, individual students and staff, as well as colleagues from other research laboratories. Anytime anyone needs any hardware, from oscilloscopes to multimeters, from soldering irons to screwdrivers, from teaching aids to discrete devices, they come to us. We also closely collaborate with CESNET.
 
In the HWLab, we predominantly focus on design and prototyping of embedded systems. Our outstanding stock of components and available equipment enables us to create complete embedded system prototypes. We are able to etch a printed circuit board (PCB), fit it, program it and test it.
 
Another part of our work is looking after educational hardware used in courses: “Computer Structures and Architectures” (BIE-SAP), “Practical Digital Design” (BIE-PNO), “Embedded Systems” (BIE-VES) and “Real-Time Systems” (BIE-SRC). 

Equipment

The HWLab is well equipped with instruments, tools, equipment, components, etc. You will find a list of oscilloscopes, logical analyzers, signals generators and components with FPGA circuits and microcontrollers on our website. But the list goes on and includes multimeters, power supply units, soldering irons, tools and more.
 
If you feel like tinkering, come and create a printed circuit board in our lab (we have etching kits and LED lamps), or have the printed circuit board made by a professional supplier (we can advise you on that). You can then fit the PCB with a wide range of components. You can choose from a broad spectrum of micro soldering irons, hot air soldering irons or even a soldering furnace. We also have drills, saws and hammers which can be used to make boxes for the produced prototypes. Last but not least, we also have a vacuum cleaner and brooms that you can use to tidy up after yourself.

A tour of our lab

Our colleagues at the Embedded Security Lab measure the power consumption during encryption of various data. In this way, they can uncover the secret key and subsequently decrypt the data. Legend: 1 – Lead-acid battery for power supply of the board with FPGA, 2 – Voltage regulator, 3 – Measured FPGA (Spartan 3E), 4 – Serial link (communication between the PC and FPGA), 5 – USB connector for programming of FPGA, 6 – Oscilloscope’s channel 2 probe (trigger measurement), 7 – Measurement of the power consumption of FPGA, 8 – Power from the power supply unit (not used at the moment – there is a switch on the board), 9 – Preamplifier 30 dB. The power trace is measured by the Agilent MSO 7104A oscilloscope.

Contact person

Where to find us

Hardware Workshop and Laboratory
Department of Digital Design
Faculty of Information Technology
Czech Technical University in Prague

Rooms TH:A-1058 and 1056
(Building A, 10th floor)
Thákurova 7
Prague 6 – Dejvice
160 00

The person responsible for the content of this page: doc. Ing. Štěpán Starosta, Ph.D.