ECE463: IoT and Software Defined Radio Lab - Fall 2025

The goal of this course is to give students hands-on experience in the design, configuration and evaluation of digital communication systems through software defined radios. The course will introduce students to various components of a digital transceiver. It will also cover various Internet of Things (IoT) communication technologies used today. Students will learn through lab driven experiments on software defined radios.

Course Overview

Instructor: Thomas Moon (tmoon@)

TA: Lilian Rafferty (aidanr4@)

Prerequisites:

• Required: ECE 210 and ECE 310

• Optional: ECE398-MA or ECE 361 or ECE 461 or ECE 459

Recommended Textbooks: (available in reserves at Grainger Library)

• Signal Processing Techniques for Software Radio by Behrouz Farhang-Boroujeny. 2nd Edition.

• Software Receiver Design: Build your Own Digital Communication System in Five Easy Steps, 1st ed., by Johnson, Sethares & Klein, Cambridge Univ. Press publisher.

PlutoSDR Rental: This course requires a PlutoSDR device for lab work. You can rent the device from the ECE shop. Please visit the following link to check out the device.

• ECE shop: https://my.ece.illinois.edu/buy/

Lecture Attendance Policy: We invite relevant questions and comments during lectures. Address your questions and comments to the entire class; avoid disruptive behavior such as talking to neighbors, unless the instructor invites you to form discussion groups. Kindly turn off or mute cell phones, laptop computers, and other electronic devices during lectures.

Course Timing

• Lectures: Wednesday, 2:00 - 2:50 PM, ECEB 3013

• Labs: Thursdays/Fridays, 1:00 - 3:00 PM, ECEB 5080

  Students will rent a PlutoSDR from the ECE shop and can work on the labs at their convenience, anywhere and anytime.

  The weekly lab section will be used for three main purposes:

  • Paper-Based Lab Quiz (10 min): At the beginning of each lab section, there will be a 10-minute paper-based quiz covering key concepts from the previous week’s lecture/lab. The quiz is individual and closed-book. No make-up quizzes will be given except in cases of documented emergencies. The lowest two quiz scores will be dropped.

  • Lab demos: Each student is required to attend their scheduled lab section to individually demo their implementation from the previous week. Demo requirements and rubric will be stated in the lab documents.

  • Open Office Hours: When not presenting a demo, students may use the lab time to ask technical questions, get debugging help, or consult on logistics and project development.

  All lab sections will be held in-person at ECEB 5080.

• Office hours:

  • Prof. Thomas Moon: After lecture or by appointment

  • TA Lilian Rafferty: Wednesday, 4:00 - 5:00 PM, ECEB 5080

Lab Report

Please use the required Latex Template and submit the pdf to Gradescope(Entry code: ZY56BR). A lab report by other formats will receive a penalty.

The lab report deadlines are set for every Friday at 11:59 p.m. of the following week. Please note that some labs will span two weeks each. Refer to the schedule table for specific deadlines.

Late penalty policy:

• No late: 100%

• less than 2-days late: 75%

• less than 4-days late: 50%

• more than 4-days late: 0%

Grading

Course Schedule

The lecture schedules are subject to change.

Course Policy

Refer to the course policy page here.