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TEACHING OF DIGITAL MODULATION TECHNIQUES USING A SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT

Abul K. M. Azad

Department of Technology, College of Engineering and Engineering Technology, Northern Illinois University, USA. Email: azad@ceet.niu.edu

Introduction

Teaching of digital modulation techniques is an important part of a digital and data communication course. This becomes challenging when it needs to be incorporated within a technology course, where the focus is mainly with application rather than the theoretical aspects. The student needs to understand the impact of various modulation parameters towards the modulation and demodulation outcomes. In addition, there is limited time for course teachers to address all these issues within a course. It has been proven that in addition to traditional classroom teaching, a simulation environment can play an important role towards the understanding of subject matter (Tokhi et al., 1999; Chen and Naughton, 2000).

In the past, academics have used high level languages, such as, FORTRAN, PASCAL, Modula- II, and C++, for the development of engineering and engineering technology simulation environments (Auslander et al., 2002). As these languages are originally designed for general purpose applications, it is quite tedious to implement various engineering concepts in an efficient manner as well as for convenient presentation of the results. The development of modern engineering software packages (Matlab, Femlab, Matrix, Pspice, MathCAD, Electronic Workbench, etc.), along with the progress in computer hardware and operating systems, offers exciting opportunities for educators to develop computer simulation environments for delivering course materials (Penfield and Larson, 1996).

A number of researchers have used Matlab for the development of simulation environments for engineering systems (Azad and Tokhi, 2003; Chen and Naughton, 2000; Tokhi et al., 1999). Towards this effort, a Matlab based simulation environment has been designed and developed for the implementation of digital modulation and demodulation techniques for an undergraduate technology course. The environment will be used by the student as a complement to the lecture and laboratory classes. The Matlab and its toolboxes work with the Guide in an interactive manner to provide a flexible simulation environment where the user can observe the behavior of an engineering system or process without going into detailed implementation of the algorithm (Marchand and Holland, 2003).

This paper presents the development of a highly interactive user-friendly environment for the simulation of digital modulation and demodulation techniques. After this introduction, the first

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright @ 2005, American Society for Engineering Education

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Azad, A. (2005, June), Teaching Of Digital Modulation Techniques Using A Simulation Environment Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14930