Instrumentation is an important tool for human to obtain information, understand nature and transform nature. Widely involved in the national economy, scientific research and all aspects related to people's daily production, it is a comprehensive engineering field that provides detection, measurement, monitoring and control devices, equipment and technology, and provides an important material and technical guarantee for human society. With the rapid development of laser technology, electronics technology, automation technology, precision machinery technology, computer and software technology, as well as the continuous emergence of new materials and new processes, not only enrich and enrich the foundation of the discipline of instrument engineering, but also broaden and develop the research field of this discipline, making instruments and meters toward precision, automation, intelligence, integration and integration Miniaturization and multifunctional development.
At the beginning of the founding of the people's Republic of China, new China was in a period of large-scale economic recovery and construction. In response to a large number of large-scale backbone industrial enterprises and national defense industry's demand for industrial instrument professionals, Tianjin University and Zhejiang University took the lead in establishing "precision mechanical instrument specialty" and "optical instrument specialty" in 1952, and gradually formed a system.
In 1958, a number of famous universities in China, such as Tsinghua University, Harbin Institute of technology, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Southeast University, Hefei University of technology, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, successively set up the specialty of precision instruments. According to the running mode of the Soviet Union, corresponding to various types of instruments, they were equipped with measuring instruments, optical instruments, timing instruments, analytical instruments, electronic instruments, etc Thermal instrument, aviation instrument, electronic measuring instrument, scientific instrument, etc. With loyalty to the party's educational cause and high patriotic enthusiasm, teachers and students work hard. Under the condition of difficult human, material and financial resources, a number of instrument professionals trained by our country have stepped out of the school and become the backbone technical force in national economic construction, national defense construction and scientific research, making remarkable achievements.
For more than ten years, the predecessors in the field of instrumentation in the academic, scientific and educational circles have made in-depth discussion, profound analysis and incisive description for the role and status of instrumentation. Famous scientists Wang Daheng, Yang Jialong, Jin Guofan and other academicians highly summarized and pointed out that "instrumentation is an important part of the information industry and the source of the information industry", revealed the discipline nature and positioning of instrumentation, pointed out the development direction of instrumentation discipline, had far-reaching guiding significance for the development of the discipline, and called for it. From this, the discipline of instrumentation has been correctly positioned, standardized and described, and the development direction has been made clear.
The development speed of instrumentation specialty is unprecedented. In less than 10 years, the scale of running a school has quadrupled. It shows a good state of hot enrollment and distribution. The reason for the great development of this major is not only from the greater social demand, but also from the social recognition of this major education. The knowledge structure of this major is based on the disciplines of optics, machinery, electronics and computing. It cultivates broad caliber talents with thick foundation and wide range of knowledge, which is in line with the demand of the talent market and the vigorous development of information technology.