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Session 3220

Enhancing the DSP Toolkit of LabVIEW

Murat Tanyel Dordt College

Abstract

Most Digital Signal Processing (DSP) courses rely heavily on MATLAB and/or C, representing the state of the art in textual programming, for their standard computer tools. Many textbooks are published containing examples, if not sections, devoted to these textual languages. We have argued, in a previous paper, that whereas this environment may be efficient in manipulating equations, textual implementation of processes best described by block diagrams loses its intuitive substance and gave examples in LabVIEW of implementations that are better left graphical. However, the standard DSP toolkit of LabVIEW is aimed at the practicing engineer/scientist who needs to process acquired data to reach other ends in contrast to a student whose aim is to learn about signal processing. LabVIEW’s DSP toolkit is rich with high level algorithms but needs to be enhanced in order to serve the pedagogical needs of students of DSP. Having decided to teach DSP with LabVIEW a year ago, I have found myself writing many routines to complement the standard DSP toolkit as I have tried to demonstrate basic concepts. This paper will describe this additional toolkit that has been growing to make LabVIEW a better teaching tool in a DSP class.

I. Introduction

When I started teaching DSP last year, I chose LabVIEW as the computer tool for hands-on experiences and demos. The decision was against the common trend, for MATLAB has become the de facto standard for numerical computation in signal processing 1. This uncommon decision was taken because of two major reasons: i) My previous experience with LabVIEW 2-6 has been very rewarding and I would like my students to have LabVIEW programming skills in addition to MATLAB programming skills they acquire in their Introduction to Engineering class at the freshman level and in Linear Systems at the sophomore level. ii) It was my contention that “processes that [are best] describe[d in terms of] what happens to various inputs to achieve an output, so easily depicted by block diagrams in control systems, communication systems and DSP, are better candidates for simulation and/or realization in a graphical programming environment than in a textual environment.”7 My personal preference, as given in (i) above was not adequate to justify this choice, while reason (ii) could be addressed by other choices, such as MATLAB’s SIMULINK and HP’s VEE. SIMULINK has provided an effective graphical environment and thus ‘valuable additional simulation capability’ for control systems8. HP’s VEE is another contender in the graphical programming realm which is also aimed at data acquisition and instrument control9. In the end, the ready availability of LabVIEW’s full development system in

Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright Ó 2002, American Society for Engineering Education

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Tanyel, M. (2002, June), Enhancing The Dsp Toolkit Of Labview Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--10298