Pictures of the lab

After a well deserved year-end break, Lab 1 was presented to the first group of intrepid ECE417 students. This first experiment tackled non-uniform quantization , and it is somewhat a continuation of the last experiment on ECE416. Students experimented with A-Law and mu-Law compression algorithms.

In Lab 2 we put together a generic communication system, with a bit source, a pulse shaping stage, a filter representing a band-limited channel and a receiver filter. In this lab, the main focus is on inter-symbol interference (ISI). The students played with the channel bandwidth and utilized an eye-diagram to verify the effects. The Lissajous figure on the oscilloscope nearly caused a riot in the lab.

Lab 3 is an extension of Lab 2, in which we designed, simulated and built a "basic" communication system. In Lab 3, however, we dealt with noise as well as ISI. Prior to this lab, it may be a good idea to review the design and application of Matched Filters.

In Lab 4 the students simulated a Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) system (both transmitter and receiver), and observed the effects of phase shift, noise and ISI introduced by the channel.

Finally, Lab 5 closed the course with an introduction to Error Control Codes. Those interested in learning this topic more in depth should check out the web-page for ECE1501.

You can check out the results of a student satisfaction survey that was ran at the end of the term. This survey was related to the laboratory part of the course, and was intended to gauge if the students perceived the laboratory as useful in their learning experience.

Lab 1 is a general introduction to Matlab, Simulink, Code Composer Studio and DSP hardware fundamentals. Though the students may be familiar with the two first, in this course we add one more tool and use the three of them to a good extent. The student must become familiar with moving data from one tool to the other, and with manipulating the data properly before interpreting the results obtained. Since DSP programming is not the emphasis of this course, interpreting the C language utilized is a "bonus". Since this is not part of the experiment, the student is encouraged to look at it and make modifications to it if time allows.

In Lab 2 an introduction to digital filters is presented. This experiment was designed to bring together concepts from Signals and Systems through the design, simulation and testing of digital filters. Instead of working with the synthesis of a square wave (as every other course does), in this experiment the student designs, implements and tests filters to break the signal down to its fundamental. The concept of band limitation is introduced here.

Amplitude Modulation was the topic in Lab 3 . In this experiment, students simulated and built an AM modulator running on a DSP, and build a demodulator with discrete components.

Lab 4 was FM. Students simulated a modulator and a PLL-based demodulator for FM. On the second part of the experiment, an FM signal was presented to a PLL-based FM demodulator which was running on a DSP. When you come to this experiment, take a look at Bessel functions and on PLL.

Lab 5 was uniform PCM.

You can check out the results of a student satisfaction survey that was ran at the end of the term. This survey was related to the laboratory part of the course, and was intended to gauge if the students perceived the laboratory as useful in their learning experience.

We use the Summer to put the structure of the lab together, so it can hold strong for the courses of the following school year. In 2002, this included planning the physical size of the workstation, purchasing all equipment, installing all software, writing a lot of code, testing a lot more code, making presentations to the professors, etc, etc. We made it a project to take one student per Summer for a 3 month "internship" in the lab. For 2003, there will be work to do in hardware/firmware/software. By working here, Summer students have the oportunity to improve their skills on software packages and on a state-of-the-art hardware platform that are all widely used in the industry.

Summer 2002 - Our former intern has now graduated and has a job with Analog Devices, Inc. in Boston, MA. Not bad, eh?

Summer 2003 - We've just hired a new intern.

For the two courses that we have served so far, informal surveys were conducted in order to gauge the degree of satisfaction of the students utilizing the lab. On both surveys, the results obtained indicated that the students were quite satisfied with their learning environment and laboratory teaching methods. These surveys were relative to the laboratory only. If you are interested in seeing the results, here they are:

ECE416 - Fall 2002:
Survey and Results

ECE417 - Winter/Spring 2003:
Survey and Results