A simple approach to the teaching of DSP

The teaching of DSP tended to become algorithmically very mathematical as the subject evolved into an autonomous discipline but the relevance of this approach is questionable when the undergraduates concerned are largely interested in control engineering or seismology. Those studying a multidisciplinary engineering course may well have a basic grounding in electronics and also in real time and embedded computing. This is the case for Southampton Institute´s BSc in Industrial Systems Technology. Open University undergraduates are often following multidisciplinary profiles and in this respect the challenge to staff at both institutions had an element of commonality. The objectives of the two course teams were different and this is reflected in the approaches taken. The authors describe these two approaches