REAL-TIME TOOLKIT’S USAGE FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL TASKS ON DIGITAL SIGNAL SYNTHESIS, PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS COURSE

Digital Signal Processing (DSP) is the branch of engineering that, in the space of just a few decades, has enabled unprecedented levels of interpersonal communication and of on-demand entertainment. By reworking the principles of electronics, telecommunication and computer science into a unifying paradigm, DSP is the heart of the digital revolution that brought us CDs, DVDs, MP3 players, mobile phones and countless other devices.
This article is about applying unique practical method of teaching undergraduate students in the framework of digital signal processing course. The introduction of practical methods in learning consists of the real-time toolkits’ usage in conducting classes allowing students to see the visual results of work on the screen (as in traditional programming courses), as well as to realize how to use the audio perception. The course requires from students to have a deep mathematical background and programming skills and focus on the learning-by-doing approach with examples and real-world programming assignments (learning practical programming).
Second section describes methodology of building a course which consists of lessons plan and used toolkit. The toolkit implemented into the course for the students’ research work. The toolkit consists of hardware and software parts and allows to create the experiments for signal’s and noise’s synthesis, time and frequency domain analysis and DSP’s tasks. The student’s involvement into experiments gives them the opportunity to apply the theory of DSP in practice.
Third part describes the hardware and software parts in details: the course is based on the Texas Instruments TMS320C5515 eZdsp™ USB Stick Development Tool, which are representatives of the Texas Instruments' DSP family. The software based on Mathworks Matlab models and implemented templates (programs) written by authors for IDE Code Composer Studio. This part is an unique development instrument for teachers, because it provides them and their students with prototypes and reference design for quick start for the DSP research.
Fourth section include examples of software developed by authors which allows students to investigate simulation methods of deterministic signals and random noises with correct attributes in the Fourier and Hartley spectral domain bases, as well as methods of optimized digital filtering. During laboratory work students use Matlab software for visual and numerical analysis of simulated and processed signals, verification and estimation of approximation, quantization and scaling error levels. Code Composer Studio allows students to implement a digital filter on the DSP device and "hear" the result of the work.
This article presents the toolkit’s design and original method of practical teaching the undergraduate course of DSP. The course involves students into actual scientific research, they solve application tasks in real-time mode, develop software for DSP devices, verify and analyze the results.
Many years of teaching experience of the authors allows to speak about the success of the application of this training method. Seeing the results of work in real time, students are motivated for further study and research. The results of a quantitative survey of students complete this article.
Acknowledgement:
The described work is been financially supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Government Contract #2.7782.2017/BC