Design projects in an undergraduate DSP course and laboratory

Summary form only given. Design projects provide important vehicles for learning. During the last seven years an undergraduate DSP course has been offered as a senior technical elective to electrical and computer engineering students at Cal Poly State University. In parallel with theory and experiments, teams of two or three students propose, design and implement a DSP project and demonstrate the product. The effort and time that is required to complete a project is comparable to three or four experiments. Interested students pursue further DSP work as a senior project, which is a two quarter activity equivalent to 5 quarter units. More DSP design may be carried out under the category of individual-study. In terms of complexity, novelty, challenge and relation to real-world applications, the projects vary. Some are done minimally to satisfy the DSP course requirement at the passing level. Some are innovative, sophisticated, and worthy of industrial consideration, indicating students´ facility with the hardware and programming and advanced use of computers. The paper analyzes the experience with undergraduate DSP projects, describes some examples, and draws conclusions. One conclusion is that the project is an essential component of a comprehensive learning experience in DSP. For this to materialize, the project needs to be planned according to the qualification and interest of individual teams and students. The aim of the paper is to document and summarize the Cal Poly experience, disseminating the results, and to present roadmaps for similar activities to interested colleagues elsewhere.