Online Laboratory Sessions in System Design with DSPs using the R-DSP Lab

Abstract

The education of students in the design of DSP (Digital Signal Processor) based systems is achieved through courses including lectures and laboratory sessions. Traditionally, the laboratory sessions take place in the hands-on laboratories and the physical presence of both students and instructors is required. This paper presents the online conduction of the System Design with DSPs postgraduate course's laboratory sessions utilizing the R-DSP Lab (Remote Digital Signal Processors Laboratory). This interactive RL (Remote Laboratory) allows the students to verify their DSP applications which are written by them in C and/or assembly programming language without time and place restrictions. It also supports the remote control of the available laboratory equipment through an internet accessible and user-friendly control environment. However, the most important feature of the R-DSP Lab which is proposed in this paper, is the remote control of student's DSP applications through GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) developed by them. This feature is demonstrated through an example concerning the implementation and verification processes of a real-time DTMF (Dual Tone Multi Frequency) encoder/decoder. In this example the DSP application is remotely controlled through a LabVIEW based GUI developed by the students following the instructions of the corresponding laboratory session. The assessment and evaluation of both the System Design with DSPs laboratory sessions and the R-DSP Lab are also discussed in this paper.