Teaching Challenge in Hands-on DSP Experiments for Night-School Students

The rapid increase in digital signal processing (DSP) applications has generated a strong demand for electrical engineers with DSP backgrounds; however, the gap between industry needs and university curricula still exists. To answer this challenge, a sequence of innovative DSP courses that emphasize hands-on experiments and practical applications were developed for continuing education in electrical and computer engineering. These courses are taught in the evening for night-school students having at least three years of work experience. These courses enable students to experiment with sophisticated DSP applications to augment the theoretical, conceptual, and analytical materials provided in traditional DSP courses. The inclusion of both software and hardware developments allows students to undertake a wide range of DSP projects for real-world applications. Assessment data concludes that the digital signal processor fundamentals course can increase learning interest and overcome the prerequisite problem of DSP laboratory experiments. This paper also briefly introduces representative examples of some challenging DSP applications.