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Session 1220

PC-based Personal DSP Training Station Armando B. Barreto1, Kang K. Yen1 and Cesar D. Aguilar Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Florida International University

This paper describes the setup of a Personal DSP Training Station (DSPTS), based on a Personal Computer (PC) with a soundcard and a low-cost prototype DSP board. It will be shown that, with these minimum requirements, a student or a practicing engineer can have an environment to acquire the skills needed for the real-time implementation of DSP algorithms. I. Significance of an Affordable Real-Time DSP Training Station The ready availability and reduced cost of powerful Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) has taken this area of engineering from a highly sophisticated set of theories, reserved for high-end applications, to a practical alternative for signal manipulation in many industries. Accordingly, in recent years DSPs have been utilized as building blocks for a large number of consumer products, ranging from dolls to personal communication systems, modems, etc. This proliferation of DSP applications calls for the development of engineers that are capable of understanding the signal processing problem posed by a certain application, proposing a signal processing solution and implementing it for real-time performance. Such an engineer will require as a minimum, a combined knowledge of the following areas: - Continuous and Discrete Time Systems Theory - Microprocessor Programming and Hardware Interfacing - Software Engineering Concepts. While most of the knowledge indicated above is transmitted to engineering students in their lecture courses, the ability to implement the DSP techniques in dedicated processors (DSPs) for real-time performance is a skill that can only be developed by practice. Unfortunately, this also means that an adequate experimental environment is required for this practice. The fundamental component of a real-time DSP training station is, of course, a DSP processing board to perform the processing on signals that are converted from analog form to the digital domain and then back to analog. This kind of systems has been available to designers in industry for a number of years as “Evaluation Modules” (e.g., Texas Instruments EVM C30). Recently, DSP manufacturers have responded to the need of allowing educators and students, as well as practicing engineers interested in the filed, to learn real-time DSP implementation skills. As a result, a number of “DSP Learning kits” or “DSKs” have been offered at very affordable prices ($100 - $150). However, the DSP hardware is only one of the required elements for a real-time DSP learning environment. Two other types of elements are typically needed: Means of generating known, controlled signals to be applied to the DSP system as input, and means of monitoring and characterizing the output signals produced by the DSP hardware system.

Although the necessary instruments for signal generation and monitoring are available in instructional laboratories at universities, or in some design departments in industry, they may not be available to many interested practicing engineers, or may represent a strong investment for small colleges that would like to implement real-time DSP courses.

1 This work was made possible by US Dept. of Education grant MSIP-P120A60016 and matching support from Texas Instruments, Inc.

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Yen, K. K., & Aguilar, C. D., & Barreto, A. B. (1998, June), Pc Based Personal Dsp Training Station Paper presented at 1998 Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/1-2--7336