Sep 16 – 20, 2024
Knoxville Convention Center (KCC)
US/Eastern timezone
GRCon24 will take place in Knoxville, TN from Sept 16-20

A Modern, Two-Course Undergraduate Communications Sequence

Sep 17, 2024, 3:35 PM
30m
Ballroom AB (Knoxville Convention Center (KCC))

Ballroom AB

Knoxville Convention Center (KCC)

Talk Education (any level) Main Track

Speaker

Neil Rogers (USAFA)

Description

Software Defined Radios (SDR) present a
unique opportunity for undergraduate communications
courses, as they are low-cost and easily obtained. In addition,
the recent momentum of the GNU Radio project has
significantly lowered the barrier to entry for implementing
SDR applications. Some universities have integrated GNU Radio
into their undergraduate communications courses as
a motivator [1]. Additionally, other resources are publicly
available, such as the excellent website PySDR.org and open
source textbooks (e.g., [2]). However, it can be difficult to
build a meaningful, cohesive curriculum that covers traditional
communications theory while providing exposure to
modern SDR applications. This paper presents a two-course
sequence that utilizes a variety of traditional and nontraditional
resources to expose graduates to theoretical and
applied concepts, which the authors taught in its entirety
during the 2023-2024 academic year. It contains a full
outline, explanation of pedagogical methodology, and links
to lesson plans and resources.

REFERENCES
[1] P. Mathys, “Motivating undergraduate communication theory
using gnu radio,” Proceedings of the GNU Radio Conference,
vol. 1, no. 1, 2016. [Online]. Available: https://pubs.gnuradio.org/
index.php/grcon/article/view/10
[2] A. Wyglinski, R. Getz, T. Collins, and D. Pu, Software-
Defined Radio for Engineers, ser. Artech House mobile
communications series. Artech House, 2018. [Online]. Available:
https://books.google.com/books?id=cKR5DwAAQBAJ

Talk Length 30 Minutes

Primary author

Co-author

Presentation materials