A Microcontroller-based DSP Laboratory Curriculum

In this paper, we present digital signal processing (DSP) hands-on laboratory coursework which was developed based on a low-cost embedded microcontroller (MCU) platform. Recent advances in MCUs (e.g. ARM Cortex M MCUs) have made the embedded microcontroller an option for most DSP applications and therefore a practical option for the DSP laboratory. The selected MCU tool uses the same ARM Cortex-M4 platform as used for the embedded microcontroller courses in our program with the addition of the ARM CMSIS DSP library. Our work was inspired by the needs of creating meaningful hands-on DSP lab experiments in the allotted one term period (ten weeks) and by the goal of improving student success in implementing DSP-based culminating projects that meet desired goals within realistic constraints. The benefits of integrating the MCU tools in the DSP course are very promising. It permits more practical DSP laboratories and DSPbased capstone projects that render richer design experiences and makes meeting realistic design constraints feasible. Furthermore, it provides an integrated laboratory curriculum structure between embedded microcontroller and DSP courses which reduces students’ unnecessary effort of learning new tools in different courses. Consequently, students can focus more on the subject matter and additional concepts can be introduced in the lab and enhanced learning outcomes can be added to the DSP course. These MCUbased DSP laboratory coursework were offered in Spring 2016. The assessment results from this course demonstrated the effectiveness of these developed lab coursework in achieving additional learning outcomes.