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

Tablet Return Process

Greetings ECE 420 Students!

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 2022 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. Please leave a note in the box or taped to the box with your name and Net ID.

For those that paid to have shipped to them an ECE420 kit and are doing this course remotely please e-mail wlsmith@illinois.edu to receive instructions as to how to return it.

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

4/25/2022

Final demo and presentation will be on this week. You should do both presenataion and demo just like the assigned lab. Please set your schedule by the new doodle poll below. We will use the lecture zoom link below for the final demo (not the lab zoom link).
https://doodle.com/meeting/participate/id/e1wE5Xmb

3/25/2022

Extra credit lab is now on the course website. The grading and submission policy will be identical to the regular prelabs and labs. The deadline for the extra lab is 5/6.

prelab: https://courses.grainger.illinois.edu/ece420/sp2022/lab8/prelab/

lab: https://courses.grainger.illinois.edu/ece420/sp2022/lab8/lab/

3/21/2022

Please schedule your assigned lab demo day by the following link:
https://doodle.com/meeting/participate/id/oeEoY3vb

1/21/2022

Classroom changed to ECEB 3015

1/14/2022

Please enroll the course (ECE420 Spring 2022) on Gradescope. Entry code: 6PDK7G

1/12/2022

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

Lectures are once a week on Monday from 2:00-2:50pm in ECEB 3015. The lecture topics are subject to change.

You can look up Zoom meeting links here (NetID log-in required).
Video recordings are available here (NetID log-in required).

Week of	Lecture Topic	Lab	Due (in lab)
01/17	MLK, No lecture	No lab	N/A
01/24	Course Overview, [slides]	Lab 1 - IMU Pedometer	Mock Quiz (extra credit)
01/31	Audio Processing, [slides]	Lab 2 - Real-time Audio Filtering	Prelab 2, Demo(lab1) and Quiz 1
02/07	Short-time Spectral Analysis, [slides]	Lab 3 - Spectrogram	Prelab 3, ~~Demo(lab2)~~ and Quiz 2
02/14	Correlation Analysis , [slides]	Lab 4 - Pitch Detection	Prelab 4, Demo(lab2 and lab3) and Quiz 3
02/21	Pitch Modification, [slides]	Lab 5 - Pitch Synthesis	Prelab 5, Demo(lab4) and Quiz 4
02/28	Overview of 2D Image Processing, [slides]	Lab 6 - Image Processing	Prelab 6, Demo(lab5) and Quiz 5
03/07	Video Kalman Filter, KCF, [slides]	Lab 7 - Video Processing	Prelab 7, Demo(lab6) and Quiz 6
03/14	No lecture - Spring break	No lab	N/A
03/21	RFID and Signal Processing, [slides]	Assigned Project Lab, [guideline]	Demo(lab7) and Quiz 7, Assigned Lab Project Proposal due 3/28 @ 2PM
03/28	Extra Lab: Digit Recognition by Machine Learning, [slides]	Design Review Presentation + Assigned Project Demo	Presentation File, and Assigned Lab code due 4/8 @ 11:59PM
04/04	Preview Final project, [slides]	Final Project - Start up	Final Project Proposal due 4/11 @ 2PM
04/11	No lecture	Final Project - Milestone 1 Work	Milestone 1 due 4/15 @11:59PM
04/18	Acoustic Localization, [slides]	Final Project - Milestone 2 Work	Milestone 2 due 4/22 @11:59PM
04/25	Acoustic Localization part2, [slides]	Final Project - Demo	Final Project Demo and Presentation
05/02	No lecture	Final Week	Final Project Report, Presentation File, Source Code and Video due 5/6 @11:59PM

Labs

Schedule and Location

Labs are held by Zoom meeting. You can look up Zoom meeting links here (NetID log-in required).

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.

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. ABA quiz opens 2:00-2:15, 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).

Android Tablet

Students are individually required an Android device for lab. Due to COVID-19, we suggest the following options to acquire the device.

Students can request a tablet to be shipped to their address and get them returned after semester (International shipping may not be available depending on the location).
Students can either use their own Android device (recommended powerful enough to NVIDIA SHIELD Tablets) or purchase one (recommended Lenovo Tab M10 FHD Plus as NVIDIA SHIELD tablet is discontinued).

Students are responsible for the safety of their tablet. Tablet check out and return should be well documented by the check out sheets in the lab folder. Please notify the TAs when you no longer want to be recorded on the check out sheet.

Refer to the NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet page under Resources for more information.

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.

Grades

Grades can be found on Gradescope.

Brief Grading Breakdown

Structured Labs - 40%
- 10% for the prelab
- 20% for the demo
- 10% for the quiz
Assigned Project Lab - 10%
- 5% for the project proposal
- 5% for the assigned project demo
Final Project - 45%
- 5% for design review presentation
- 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 (Up to 2%)
Lecture participation - 5%

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 10% of the total grade.

The final project will count for 45% of the total grade, with 5% on the design review presentation, 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 by joining the zoom lecture or submitting the summary of the lecture (within a week).

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.

All assignments other than the lecture quiz, final project proposal, and final project report are due during the scheduled laboratory meeting. 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.

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.

Office Hours / Course Administrivia

Prof. Thomas Moon: After class.
TA Dimitrios Gotsis: T/TR 4-5 PM
TA Ibrahim Pehlivan: W/F 4-5 PM

If you have questions, post them on Campuswire.

Instructor Contact Information

Prof. Thomas Moon: tmoon@illinois.edu
TA Dimitrios Gotsis: gotsis2@illinois.edu
TA Ibrahim Pehlivan: ip8@illinois.edu