Enhancing Undergraduate Education in Signals and Signal Processing using Advanced UltraWideband Technology

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PARTICIPATING INSTITUTIONS: University of Alabama in HuntsvillePROJECT DESCRIPTION UltraWideband (UWB) is a radio technology that operates at a very low energy level for short-range, high-bandwidth communications using a large portion of the radio spectrum. The technology offers a solution to the future connectivity needs of the next -generation consumer electronic devices that cannot be met with today's wireless LAN and WPAN technologies. The attributes of high bandwidth, high fidelity, low power, low cost, and compact physical size which make UWB ideal for enabling wireless connectivity is also ideal for a hands-on instrumentation platform for learning the basic concepts in signals and signal processing for an electrical engineer. This project is enhancing undergraduate education in electrical engineering by incorporating recent advances in high performance UWB instrumentation into laboratories to improve student learning. This approach allows key fundamental concepts in signal and signal processing (e.g., the impulse response, modulation, time-domain/frequency-domain duality, sampling, signal orthogonality, correlations, and filtering) to emerge from mathematical theory using the UWB technology and materialize in hands-on experiments.The project is addressing the need to provide students unique hands-on practice with real-world technology to connect the dots between signal and signal processing concepts and system performance. Students crave these practical exercises so they can see the "big picture" and understand why learning these concepts is important. This laboratory fills a void in the curriculum that has been long overlooked. BROADER SIGNIFICANCE The project holds promise to bridge the gap between theoretical signal processing concepts and wireless operations via experiences in a practical laboratory environment. As future employee or graduate researchers, the students can immediately engage in the design process, an often-rare commodity. External feedback provided by industry is facilitating a line of communication, which is creating a better alignment of course content with current technology trends. Finally, the targeted materials developed during the project increase the likelihood of curriculum adoption by other institutions.