Welcome to ECE 420 Embedded DSP Laboratory

Course Description

The first seven weeks of the course will be structured labs based on fundamental digital signal processing (DSP) concepts from ECE 310. The next two weeks will be on the implementation and simulation of a fundamental DSP algorithm of a student's choosing from a set of seminal DSP papers (such as adaptive filtering, pitch detection, edge-aware filtering, motion tracking, pattern recognition, etc). The remaining six weeks in the course will revolve around the development, testing, and documentation of a DSP project of the student's choice (subject to instructor approval).

Course Goals

Students will learn to prototype, implement, and analyze real-time DSP systems. Students will both broaden and deepen their understanding of basic DSP theory and techniques and learn to relate this understanding to real-world observations and applications. Students will learn industrially-relevant skills such as rapid design prototyping in Python, and Android development of DSP applications in C++/Java for computationally-constrained mobile devices. Other significant educational experiences include open-ended design, oral, and written communication, and team projects.

Course Announcement

05/02/2023


It’s time to return your ECE 420 Tablet once you are done with it for this semester before leaving campus. 

Before return please reset/log out from your account with these instructions:

-First go to Settings -> Security  and remove Screen lock, PIN or  passwords, and if set, remove Face -Recognition
-Then  Settings -> System -> Reset Options -> Erase all data (factory reset) following prompts to erase all data

Once reset is complete please return your Spring 2023 ECE 420 Tablet.

For those on campus you may return your ECE420 tablet to the  ECE Building Facilities office window  Room 1034  between 8 AM to 3 PM Monday thru Friday.  They are closed from noon to 1 PM for lunch.  
Facilities will have a check in sheet at their counter.

For those on campus you may return your ECE420 tablet to the  ECE Building Facilities office window  Room 1034  between 8 AM to 3 PM Monday thru Friday.  They are closed from noon to 1 PM for lunch.  Please leave a note in the box or taped to the box with your name and Net ID.

Contact carter52@illinois.edu with any questions concerning the return.


 

01/14/2023

  • Lend-lease Tablet: Please read the following link carefully and request a tablet per student. An Android device is required for this course. If you are willing to use your own Android device, then you do not need to request. Please keep all packaging for the return shipment! https://ece.illinois.edu/academics/ugrad/lab-kits

Course Schedule

Schedule and Location

  • Location: ECEB 3015
  • Time: Monday, 2:00-2:50 PM.
 

The lecture topics are subject to change.

Week of Lecture Topic Lab Due (in lab)
01/16 No Lecture No Labs  
01/23 Lec 1 - Course Overview [slides] Lab 1 - IMU Pedometer Mock Quiz (extra credit)
01/30 Lec 2 - Audio Processing  [slides] Lab 2 - Real-time Audio Filtering Prelab 2, Demo(lab1) and Quiz 1
02/06 Lec 3 - Short-time Specgtral Analysis [slides] Lab 3 - Spectrogram Prelab 3, Demo(lab2) and Quiz 2
02/13 Lec 4 - Correlation Analysis [slides] Lab 4 - Pitch Detection Prelab 4, Demo(lab3) and Quiz 3
02/20 Lec 5 - Pitch Modification [slides] Lab 5 - Pitch Synthesis Prelab 5, Demo(lab4) and Quiz 4
02/27 Lec 6 - Overview of 2D Image Processing  [slides] Lab 6 - Image Processing Prelab 6, Demo(lab5) and Quiz 5
03/06 Lec 7 - Video tracking, KCF [slides] Lab 7 - Video Processing Prelab 7, Demo(lab6) and Quiz 6
03/13 No lecture - Spring Break  No Labs N/A
03/20 Special Topics- Team Project Preview [slides] Assigned Project Lab [Latex template] Demo(lab7) and Quiz 7, Assigned Lab Project Proposal due by 3/27 @2 PM
03/27

Special Topics

 Design Review Presentation + Assigned Project Demo Presentation File, and Assigned Lab code due by 4/10 @2 PM
04/03 Extra Lab- Handwritten digit recognition [slides] Final Project - Start up Final Project Proposal due by 4/10 @5 PM
04/10 Special Topics Final Project - Milestone 1 Work Milestone 1
04/17 Extra Lab- Handwritten digit recognition -continued Final Project - Milestone 2 Work Milestone 2
04/24 Special Topics Final Project - Demo Final Project Demo and Presentation
05/01 No lecture Final Week - Late Demo Final Project Report, Presentation File, Source Code and Video due by 5/5 11:59PM

Schedule and Location

Labs are in-person at ECEB 5072.

  • Section ABA meets Tuesday, 2:00-3:50 PM.
  • Section ABC meets Wednesday, 2:00-3:50 PM.
  • Section ABD meets Thursday, 2:00-3:50 PM.
  • Section ABE meets Friday, 2:00-3:50 PM.

Grades

Grades can be found on Gradescope (Entry Code:NXZEP3).

Brief Grading Breakdown

  • Structured Labs - 40%
    • 10% for the prelab
    • 20% for the demo
    • 10% for the quiz
    • Extra credit Lab8 (3%)
  • Assigned Project Lab - 15%
    • 5% for the project proposal
    • 5% for the assigned project demo
    • 5% for design review presentation
  • Final Project - 40%
    • 10% for the final project proposal
    • 5% for the completion of two milestones
    • 15% for the final demo
    • 10% for the final report
    • Extra credit for the final video (1%)
  • Lecture participation - 5%

Office Hours / Course Administrivia

  • Prof. Thomas Moon: After class
  • TA Dimitrios Gotsis: Thursday 1-2 PM
  • TA Yuqi Li: Tuesday 1-2 PM
If you have questions, post them on Campuswire.
Invitation Link: link
Code: 7216

Instructor Contact Information

  • Prof. Thomas Moon: tmoon@illinois.edu
  • TA Dimitrios Gotsis: gotsis2@illinois.edu
  • TA Yuqi Li: yuqil3@illinois.edu

Detailed Grading Breakdown

The structured laboratory segment will count for 40% (10% for prelab, 10% for quiz, and 20% for demo and oral quiz) of the total grade, based on completion of, and oral examination over, the weekly laboratory assignments, including the underlying theory, details of the implementation and code, and the observed behavior of the system. We emphasize that your grade is based heavily on your understanding and demonstration of the course material, not just on submitting working code.

The assigned project lab (based on the student's chosen DSP paper) will account for 15% of the total grade.

The final project will count for 40% of the total grade, 10% on the project proposal, 5% for demonstrations of 2 project milestones, 15% for the final demo and oral presentations, and 10% on the final report.

The final 5% of the total course grade comes from lecture participation.

It is expected that each student will attend and participate in scheduled class and laboratory meetings, or will make prior alternate arrangements with the instructor. The final grade may be penalized if this does not occur.

A late penalty of 50% will be assessed for assignments less than a week late; assignments more than a week late will receive no credit. However, all graded assignments must be submitted to receive a passing grade in the course.

Quizzes

There are seven 15-minute quizzes (plus one mock quiz) throughout the semester. They are open-book individual assessments taken at Prairielearn . Each quiz starts at the beginning of each lab section and ends after 15 minutes (e.g. AB1 quiz opens 2:30-2:45, every Tuesday). Students MUST take the quiz at their registered lab section. There is no makeup for missed quizzes. An absence letter from the Dean of Students is required to waive a missed quiz due to acute medical condition. Discussion of the quiz is NOT allowed until all sections have completed the quiz. The grading will be published every Friday evening. You will earn extra credit for the mock quiz (make-up for lost points in the quizzes).

Groups

Students will be working in groups to complete all labs and final project. Typically, groups of two are strongly prefered, group of more or less is allowed only on rare occasions.

For structured labs (lab 1 ~ lab 7), groups will be formed randomly and differently for each lab, so that students could have the chance to work with different partners.

For assigned project labs and final project labs, students are expected to form their own groups. Feel free to form groups as large as you want; however we do expect more work for larger groups. Feel free to form groups across different sections; if you plan to do so, make sure the entire group can attend one of the sections because you will need to do presentations and demos as a whole.

Submissions

Refer to the submission instructions page for more information.

Project Details

Refer to the Assigned Project Lab and Final Project pages.

Academic Integrity Policy

Printed and online sources are allowed with proper citation. Please direct your question to Google or the course staff before you ask your classmates. Given the range of the material for this course, we encourage you to refer to any online source, but do not directly copy and paste.

We do not allow inter-group cooperation for the final project. If there is a sign of cooperation between groups, those groups will be treated as a big group, and the grade will be divided accordingly.

More information: Student Code.