ECE 448 — Software Defined Radios#
Software Defined Radios
Real signals, real flowgraphs.
Seven modules, 20 lessons, and a final project you define yourself.
An Applications Course
Watch what the signal does; don’t calculate it. We use real radios and GNU Radio to observe effects, such as what happens when the noise goes up, and, when it helps, tie what we see back to theory.
ECE 447 is where communications theory is derived. Here we use it: every lesson starts with a signal to build, receive, or decode, and brings in the theory only when the flowgraph needs it.
Modules 5-7: Applications
Custom Blocks & Midterm
Write your own GNU Radio blocks, then the midterm: a fox hunt and a capture-the-flag.
06Waveform Applications & RF Reverse Engineering
CW, DTMF, HD Radio, mPSK, frequency hopping, ADS-B, AIS, and the unknown signal.
07Final Project
QAM and OFDM, then your own project, graded against success criteria you write.
What You Are Graded On
Individual
Final Project
40% of course grade
Self-defined success criteria, report, and live demonstration
How it is graded →Ongoing
Engagement
20% of course grade
Quizzes, practice problems, EI, and peer review
Ways to earn engagement →Individual
Midterm
15% of course grade
Fox hunt and capture-the-flag, after Lesson 11
How it is graded →Course Goals
By the end of this course you should be able to:
Simulate, receive, and transmit signals with modern software and modulation techniques.
Describe filtering, interpolation, decimation, and matched filtering.
Apply them to real signals, noise and non-idealities included.
Reverse-engineer, decode, and characterize an unknown RF signal.
Define, execute, and defend your own SDR project.
How This Course Is Graded
Every learning objective is scored on a binary 1 / 0 scale, with no partial credit. A 0 comes with detailed feedback rather than the answer, and if you submitted real effort on time you may revise your work until you earn the 1.
This Site Is Being Built
The course is moving to this site one lesson at a time. Until a lesson is converted, its page carries the objectives and the legacy slides it was last taught from. Everything is also on the materials page.
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