Implementation at UVM

1. A Comprehensive, Laboratory-Enhanced Communications Curriculum Jeff Frolik, Assistant Professor Electrical and Computer Engineering Department University of Vermont (UVM), Burlington VT 05405, USA Abstract: Over the past decade, wireless communications has come into its own and is posed to become a ubiquitous technology with the recent arrival of 3G cellular, wireless local area networks and wireless sensor networks. As such, today’s graduating electrical engineers need marketable skills which are typically not developed in undergraduate curricula. This project address this need through significant enhancements in the undergraduate communications curriculum offered by the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (ECE) at UVM. The emphasis of these enhancements lies in the integration of hands-on experience in three typically, theory-based telecommunication courses and a separate lab course having a wireless communication device focus. Implementation at UVM UVM had a recently implemented a communication systems laboratory course but provided students with no device-level experience. To address this shortcoming, our approach is to migrate the present systems-level experiments into three existing theoretical courses. The laboratory course will be updated by adapting/implementing the USF model focusing on the characterization communication devices. Through this approach, we contend that undergraduates at UVM will be able to develop a diverse skill set applicable for future work in digital and/or wireless communication systems. UVM’s ECE program is relatively small (~20 graduates/year) and thus our implementation of a comprehensive, undergraduate communications curriculum may serve as a model for similarly sized departments. EE 174: Intro to Comm Systems (Jr.) • Spectrum Analyzer Basics • AM/FM Bandwidth and Mod Indices • Antenna Gain and Beamwidth • Eye Diagrams/Constellations EE 186: Telecommunications Lab (Sr.) • RF subsystems • Circuit characterization • Frequency conversion/mixer measurements • Amplifier performance • VCO operation • Yagi/dish antennas • System integration EE 273: Digital Communications (Sr.) • M-ary signalling • Pulse shaping and ISI • BER • Distortion EE 278: Wireless Communications (Sr.) • Dipole/patch antenna performance • Large scale fading effects • Small scale fading effects/multipath Analog Communications and Device Characterization Test Bench • Agilent 4396B Network/Impedance/ Spectrum Analyzer (1.8 GHz) • Agilent E4422B RF signal generator (4 GHz) • Agilent Infiniium 4-CH, 600 MHz DSO • Results to Date • Funding awarded August 2003 • Test bench development completed • Experiments incorporated in EE 174 and EE 273 in 03-04 academic year • Remaining Work • Revise EE 186: Telecommunications Lab to incorporate USF communication device experiments • Complete/revise the integration of communication system experiments into lecture courses • Enable senior design projects which utilize developed skills • Assessment and dissemination Notch filter tuning exercise • Outreach Activities • Women and minority scholarships for Governor’s Institutes of Vermont summer programs • NEBHE 2003 Science Network mentoring • Gizmo Girls (w/ Girl Scouts) activities at UVM • Additional activities in support of UVM’s WAMMIE program Exemplary Pedagogy Adapted The activities, enabled by a NSF CCLI A&I award, feature infrastructure development and adaptation of exemplary pedagogy from the Wireless and Microwave Instruction (WAMI) program at the University of South Florida (USF). The USF program, supported through a NSF grant (DUE-9650529) and industry support, developed a state-of-the-art undergraduate laboratory course focusing on the integration of circuits and systems aspects of modern wireless applications. The WAMI laboratory is equipped with an array of CAD/CAE software packages and a complete set of microwave and RF instrumentation. The USF course now has a per-semester enrollment of ~50 students. Our objective is to adapt USF’s approach for a program significantly smaller in size. • Digital and Wireless Communications • Test Bench • Rohde & Schwarz SMIQ03B – Arbitrary digital signal generator (3.3 GHz) • WinIQSim • HP 89441A Vector Signal Analyzer • Rohde & Schwarz FSH3 – Portable spectrum analyzer (3 GHz) • Agilent Infiniium 4-CH, 600 MHz DSO Comm Systems Comm Devices • Acknowledgements • ECE Department, Dean’s and Provost’s offices at UVM for equipment match. • IBM for equipment donations • Drs. Tom Weller and Larry Dunleavy at USF for proposal support and materials • NSF Grant DUE-0310150