ECE445S Real-Time Digital Signal Processing Laboratory - Midterm #1

Prof. Brian L. Evans

While you are preparing for the midterm, please keep in mind the course objectives:

Having regular sleep, eating, exercise and downtime from until the midterm exam will be very helpful in allowing you to have full mental energy for the test.

You can download a zip file of the files on the Canvas site prior to the midterm #1 exam.

Midterm #1 will be an in-person exam on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, from 10:30am to 11:45am:

The class average on midterm #1 has varied semester to semester. For the most recent in-person midterm #1 exams, the raw scores were 69.94 in fall 2021, 77.125 in spring 2022, 77.8 in spring 2023, and 73.2 in fall 2023.

Here are the room assignments based on your family (last) name:

Here are several example midterm #1 exams:

These and many other midterm #1 exams (mostly with solutions) are available in the course reader.

Midterm #1 Review Slides are available from Spring 2017. The review slides are not comprehensive, but instead contain a sampling of important topics.

The online supplement to the book DSP First has dozens of worked problems from the pre-requisite course on signals and systems. After selecting a chapter on the Homework menu at the top right of the page, all of the problems from that chapter will be visible. There is a Solution button for those with solutions.

For Midterm #1, you will be responsible for the following topics in lectures 0-6, homework 0-3, labs 1-3, and the accompanying readings, handouts, and discussions. Below, JSK is Johnson, Sethares & Klein's Software Receiver Design. I've also included sections for three signals and systems textbooks as well: O&W is Oppenheim and Willsky's Signals and Systems (2nd ed.) SP First is McClellan, Schafer and Yoder's Signal Processing First, and L&G is Lathi and Green's Linear Systems and Signals (3rd ed.).
Topic Lectures Lab JSK O&W SP First L&G Homework Problems Handouts
Introduction 0 1 Ch. 1
Bandwidth 1 3 Sec. 2.2 Sec. 4.3-4.4 Sec. 11-4 to 11-8 Sec. 6.3-1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.9 0.1, 0.2, 1.2, 1.3, 2.2, 2.3, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 Introduction to Fourier Transforms and Pictorial dictionary of Fourier transforms (Canvas only)
Sinusoidal generation (oscillators) 1 2 Sec. 3.2 0.4
Upconversion and downconversion 1&4 Sec. 2.3-2.6, 3.6; Ch. 5; Sec. 6.1-6.4 Sec. 8.1-8.4 Sec. 11-8.2 Sec. 7.3, 7.7 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 1.3, 3.2 Sinusoidal Amplitude Modulation Example and Summary
Communication system introduction 1 Ch. 1-2 Ch. 8 Sec. 7.7 0.2, 1.3, 3.2
Basic continuous-time signals 3 2 Sec. 2.10, 4.3 Sec. 1.3-1.4 Sec. 2-3, 2-5, 4-4 & 9-1 Sec. 1.4 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 Common Signals in Matlab
Continuous-time system properties 3 Sec. 1.6 Sec. 5-5 Sec. 1.7 0.2, 1.3 LTI System Properties, time invariance for an Ideal Delay and Integrator
Basic discrete-time signals 3 1 Sec. 1.3-1.4 Sec. 4-2.1 & 5-3.2 Sec. 3.3 0.1, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1 Common Signals in Matlab; Discrete-Time Periodicity; and Chirp Signals
Discrete-time system properties 3 2&3 Sec. 1.6 Sec. 9-4 Sec. 3.4-1 0.4, 1.1, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 LTI System Properties
Fundamental Theorem of Linear Systems for continuous-time systems 3&5 Sec. 3.5 Sec. 3.2 Sec. 10-1 Sec. 2.4-4 0.2 Fundamental Theorem of Linear Systems
Fundamental Theorem of Linear Systems for discrete-time systems 3&5 3 Sec. 3.5 Sec. 3.2 Sec. 6-1 Sec. 3.8-2 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3
Sampling theorem 4 2 Sec. 7.1 Sec. 4-1, 4-2 & 4-5 Sec. 8.1 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 1.2, 1.3, 2.2, 3.2
Sampling and aliasing 4 2 Sec. 2.8, 3.4, 6.1 Sec. 7.3 an 7.4 Sec. 12-3 Sec. 8.2 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 1.2, 1.3, 2.2, 3.2 Sampling the Unit Step Function
Bandpass sampling 4
Discrete-time to continuous-time conversion 4 2&3 Sec. 2.10 & 6.4 Sec. 7.2 Sec. 4-4 Sec. 8.2 1.2, 1.3, 2.2 (audio playback)
Continuous-time convolution 5 Sec. 4.4 and 4.5 Sec. 2.2 Sec. 9-6 and 9-7 Sec. 2.4 Convolution Example
Discrete-time convolution 5 3 Sec. 4.4 and 4.5 Sec. 2.1 Sec. 5-3.3 and 5-6 Sec. 3.8 1.3, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2 Convolution Example and Four ways to filter a signal
Z-transforms 5&6 3 App. A.4 and F Sec. 10.1-10.3, 10.5 Sec. 7-1 to 7-5 Sec. 5.1-5.2 0.4, 1.1 and 2.1
Transfer functions 5&6 3 Sec. 4.5 Sec. 10.7.3, 10.7.4 and 10.8 Sec. 8-3, 8-4 & 8-9 Sec. 5.3 0.4, 1.1, 2.1 Designing Averaging Filters and LTI Filters and Frequency Selectivity
Relationships between z and discrete-time Fourier transforms 5 3 App. F.2 Sec. 10.4 Sec. 7-6, 8-5, 8-6, and 8-10 Sec. 5.5 1.1, 2.1, 2.3, 3.1, 3.3
Discrete-time FIR filter design & implementation 5 3 Sec. 2.12, 3.3, 4.2 Sec. 10-9 Sec. 7-7 Sec. 5.4 1.3, 2.2, 3.1 Four ways to filter a signal and Designing Averaging Filters
Digital FIR filter analysis 5 3 Ch. 7 and App. G Sec. 7-7 to 7-9 1.1, 2.1 Designing Averaging Filters
Stability of discrete-time LTI systems 5&6 3 Sec. 10.7.2 Sec. 8-2.4, 8-4.2, and 8-8 Sec. 3.9 and 3.10 1.1, 2.1, 3.3 Bounded-Input Bounded-Output Stability
Discrete-time IIR filter design by pole-zero placement 6 Sec. 10.4 Sec. 8-9 and 8-10 Sec. 5.6 1.1(d), 2.1(d), 3.1 All-pass Filters
Classical discrete-time IIR filter design methods 6 3 Sec. 5.10 3.3 Elliptic IIR filter design
Implementing discrete-time IIR filters as cascades of biquads 6 3 Sec. 10-9 Sec. 8-9 Sec. 5.4 3.3 Parallel and Cascade Realizations of IIR Filters

Please review the following demonstrations:

  1. Pre-recorded in-class demonstrations from DSP First, 2nd ed.
  2. Other in-class demonstrations

You won't be responsible for any questions specific to the assembly language, instruction set architecture, or C programming on the STM32h735G-DK ARM board. However, you would be responsible for analyzing run-time complexity of algorithms without any specific processor in mind. Run-time complexity includes memory storage, memory read/write rates, and buffered input/output. It will be important to know about common data types used in signal processing algorithms, such as 8-bit/16-bit/32-bit two's complement integers as well as IEEE 32-bit/64-bit floating-point data formats. These issues were covered in lab as well as homework questions 2.3 and 3.3 and lecture 6 on IIR filtering.

Updated 10/21/24.