EE 225A Spring 2005

Project

The purpose of the group project is to gain practice in the practical aspects of signal processing. Students will divide up into groups (in most cases four, including three graduate students and one undergraduate student).

Objectives of the project

A good project will include these components:

• Consideration of an application area that allows the techniques and theories of this course to be exercised and applied.
• Techniques and technologies driven by the needs of the application context, rather than searching for a use of some favorite technology or theory.
• Choice of an appropriate scope so that the problem or challenge chosen can be reasonably addressed and achieved.
• Using a mixture of appropriate signal processing techniques brought together and integrated to accomplish the application goals.
• Gaining experience in working with real signals, and seeing what happens when they are processed.
• Exercising the understanding developed in this course.
• Use of computational techniques to empirically test and verify.
• Use of whatever computer technology is most familiar and most appropriate for the problem (Matlab, Simulink, Ptolemy, Java, … etc). Use of 'canned' blocks and subroutines is acceptable where they are available, as the overriding goal is not exercising programming skill but rather gaining experience with processing real signals.
• Good working relationship and cooperation with other group members.

Outcome

A written report of 5K to 10K words will include a tutorial review of the application, a discussion of prior work and prior art including a list of references, discussion of the issues addressed, techniques used, results obtained, and conclusions. It will make use of computer simulations with graphical representation of the results, and include source code for any software written as an appendix (this isn't included in the word count). The preferred format of the submitted report is electronic (PDF) sent as an email attachment, although paper is acceptable.

Intermediate milestones

• Milestone 1. Form a group of three students of your choice, and identify at least two application topical areas and send your ideas to the instructor by email identifying a) the group members and b) two or more applications you are considering with a short description of what you would like to investigate relative to these applications. The instructor will provide feedback, and iteration with the instructor should assist you in identifying a worthwhile topic.
• Milestone 2. Complete a complete outline of your project report, identifying specific areas where you will be doing design and simulation and email this to the instructor. The instructor will provide feedback to help you improve your project and report.
• Final report.

Grading

There will be two grades:

• A grade assigned to the group as a whole (80%) based on conformance with the project goals stated above and the quality of the research, analysis, simulation, and conclusions.
• An individual grade (20%) determined by peer evaluation, based on each student's contribution to the overall quality of the project outcomes reflected in the group grade. Each student is allocated 100 points, and asked to anonymously divide these points among the other group members based on the quality and quantity of their contribution to the project outcomes. For example, if the group has four members, so there are three 'other' members, and a student deems the contributions of the other three members to be equivalent, then she or he would allocate 33.3 points to each of the other students. If she or he deemed one student to have made twice the contribution of the others, then she or he would allocate the points as 50, 25, and 25.