The objectives of the course entitled Advanced Signal Processors are focused on providing the students with the knowledge of concepts regarding the architecture of digital signal processors besides advanced notions related to analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion techniques. Furthermore, through the practical implementation of an application on a DSP platform, the students get in touch with the DSP development tools. The achievement of these objectives relies on the development of the following skills and competences:
1. Generic knowledge concerning digital signal processors architectures and advanced analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog techniques.
2. Problem solving.
3. Capacity to learn.
4. Capacity for analysis and synthesis.
5. Capacity to adapt to new situations.
6. Will to succeed.
7. Initiative and entrepreneurial spirit.
8. Capacity to generate new ideas.
9. Capacity for applying knowledge in practice.
10. Interpersonal skills.
11. Teamwork.
12. Critical and self-critical abilities.
13. Decision-making.
14. Information management skills.
15. Elementary computing skills.
16. Knowledge of a secong language.
17. Oral and written communication in your own native language.
18. Capacity for organisation and planning.
1. Introduction
1.1. Digital signal processing systems
1.2. Real time requeriments
2. Central processing element: DSP
2.1. Introductory concepts on processors
2.2. Data representation
2.3. Concepts on processor architectures
2.4. DSP performance measures
2.5. Generic DSP architecture
2.6. Analog Devices ADSP-2106x
3. Analog-to-digital conversion
3.1. Analog filtering
3.2. Theoretical foundations
3.3. The ideal A/D converter
3.4. Quantization
3.5. The real A/D converter
3.6. The sigma-delta converter
3.7. Market options
4. Digital-to-analog conversion
4.1. Definition, block diagram and transfer function
4.2. The ideal D/A converter
4.3. The real D/A converter
4.4. Other D/A conversion techniques
4.5. Design considerations
4.6. Market options
4.7. The analog interface circuit (AIC)
Several activities regarding the impartation of the course are undertaken:
1. Class lectures.
The lecturer explains the theoretical concepts of the course by means of class lectures. During these classes, the teacher solves problems consisting in the direct application of the concepts explained. The percentage of time dedicated to both tasks is 75% to theory and 25% to problem solving.
2. Classes dedicated to individual or collective problem solving.
During the 10% of the class hours the lecturer proposes theoretical exercices for the students to solve them in the classroom. This problem solving task can be performed individually or in small groups. At the end of the class, the lecturer solves the proposed exercises, stimulating the students to contribute with the solutions found by them.
3. Homework.
Besides the problems proposed during class time, the student must solve other problems as homework. These exercices could have been proposed by the lecturer or problems belonging to a problem collection generated by the lecturers of the course. Moreover, a collection of previous years solved exams is available to the students. The objective of these exercises is consolidating the theoretical concepts explained during the classes.
4. Personal consulting.
In order to help the student to follow the course, the lecturers offer a personal consulting service. The inquiries may be referred to the theoretical contents of the course or the solution of the proposed problems, besides several aspects relating the planning of study tasks.
5. Practical work.
By means of the development of a digital signal processing application on a DSP platform, the students verify how DSP-related concepts are implemented in the real world. The application to be designed consists in a set of static and adaptive digital filtering algorithms working on real time on the Analog Devices ADSP-21061 processor. During the practical work, the students are assisted by an auxiliary teacher. The implementation of the practical work allows the student to analyze the computational capabilities of DSP processors and the development tools available for optimizing the use of its resources, besides the study of a basic digital signal processing application such as digital filtering. Moreover, the students are challenged to contribute with their own solutions to the improvement of the performance of the static filtering system. The development of the practical work represents the 20% of the course hours.
In order to evaluate whether the student has achieved the objectives of the course, several means for obtaining data on his/her performance are used:
A. Exams.
A final exam will take place at the end of the term. For those students who fail this exam, a remedial exam will take place in September.
D. Homework.
The problems proposed during the classes are susceptible of being evaluated. Additionally, the personal consulting service allows the lecturers to evaluate the work conducted by the student on the solved exams collection by the student.
G. Computer assignments
The practical work requires the use of programming languages (C, C++) and DSP applications development tools. Moreover, the Matlab digital filter design tool is employed during the development of this work.
J. Classroom participation.
The lecturer tracks the classroom attitude and participation of the students.
K. Laboratory reports
The students must summarize the practical work conducted in a report which must also include the answers to a set of questions regarding the work.
L. Laboratory participation
The auxiliary teacher who supervises the practical work tracks the degree of involvement of the students in the development of the work.
- Objective 1: The student should demonstrate basic general knowledge regarding digital signal processor architectures and advanced analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion techniques, besides the relationships and mutual implications between the different concepts described. [A, D, J, K]
- Objective 2: The student should demonstrate ability to solve problems, being capable to propose adequate solutions to theoretical and practical exercises. [A, D, J, K, L]
- Objective 3: The student should demonstrate ability to learn and understand the concepts explained throughout the course. [A, D, K]
- Objective 4: The student should demostrate analysis and synthesis abilities, being capable of analyzing the confronted problems and choosing the optimal solution. [A, D, J, K, L]
- Objective 5: The student should demonstrate ability to adapt to new situations, being capable of extrapolating acquired knowledge to different environments. [A, D, G]
- Objective 6: The student should demonstrate motivation for achieving new goals, besides showing motivation for the concepts of the course and their practical application in the real world. [G, J, L]
- Objective 7: The student should demonstrate initiative and entrepreneurial spirit, showing interest for conducting optional tasks during the practical work. [K, L]
- Objective 8: The student should demonstrate capacity for generating novel ideas, contributing with his/her own criteria to the solution of certain problems. [D, G, J, K, L]
- Objective 9: The student should demonstrate ability to apply acquired knoledge in practical situations. [G, K, L]
- Objective 10: The student should develop his/her interpersonal skills, being capable of exposing and arguing his/her own ideas in front of his/her teamwork mates, in order to take decisions consensually [L].
- Objective 11: The student should be capable of working in a team, cooperating with his mates and being capable of stimulating their collaboration, generating positive sinergies which favour the development of the practical work. [G, K, L]
- Objective 12: The student should demonstrate critical and self-critical abilities in front of the theoretical concepts exposed during the lectures. This abilities should also be demonstrated during the development of the practical work, as to evaluate the results of the experiments conducted at each stage of the work. [J, K]
- Objective 13: The student should be capable of make reasonably argued decisions. [K, L]
- Objective 14: The student should be able to manage information from several sources, as the information required for the development of the practical work is scattered throughout different documents. [G, K]
- Objective 15: The student should develop abilities in the use of several computer applications and programming languages during the development of the practical work. [G]
- Objective 16: The student should demostrate ability to understand texts written in English, as most of the literature referred to the course (papers, user manuals,
) is available in English solely. [A, D, G, K]
- Objective 17: The student should demonstrate abilities concerning written expression in Catalan (or Spanish). The students should be capable of generating written documents (exams, reports,
) with an appropriate style and exempt from orthographical errors. [A, K]
- Objective 18: The student should be capable of organizing and planning the development of the practical work, distributing tasks among the members of the work team. Moreover, the student should be capable of organizing his/her individual tasks. [K, L]
- Smith, Steven W. `The Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing´, California Technical Publishing, 1999.
- Bateman, Andrew, Paterson-Stephens, Iain `The DSP Handbook: Algorithms, Applications and Design Techniques´, Prentice Hall, 2002.
- `ADSP-2100 family user's manual´, Analog Devices, 1995.
- Haykin, Simon `Adaptive Filter Theory´, Prentice Hall, 1996.
- Hennessy J., Patterson D. `Arquitectura de procesadores: un enfoque cuantitativo´, Mc Graw Hill, 1993.
- Embree, Paul M. `C Algorithms for Real-Time DSP´, Prentice Hall, 1995.
- McClellan, James H., Schafer, Ronald W., Yoder, Mark A. `DSP First, A Multimedia Approach´, Prentice Hall, 1998.
- Ifeachor, Emmanuel C., Jervis, Barrie W. `Digital Signal Processing: A Practical Approach´, Addison-Wesley, 1993.
- Morgan, Don `Practical DSP: Modeling, techniques and programming in C´, John Wiley and Sons, 1994.
- Steiglitz, Ken. `A Digital Signal Processing Primer´, Addison-Wesley, 1996.
- `Digital Signal Processing Applications: Using The ADSP-2100 Family Vol I´, Analog Devices, 1995.