Fall 2016: ECE 203 — Signals, Information, and Computation

Professor Rebecca Willett

willett@discovery.wisc.edu
3537 Engineering Hall

ECE 203 is a stimulating introduction to signal and information processing that features real- world signals and applications, mathematical modeling, and computational methods.

Overview: Students will be exposed to exciting real-world applications in signal analysis and information processing, learn to translate physical problems in to mathematical models, and develop basic computation skills for problem solving. The course tackles this aim by studying signals and information in engineering and science applications such as communications systems, speech signal analysis, data compression, spectrum analysis, and magnetic resonance brain imaging.

Lectures: Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00-11:50am, 1610 Engineering Hall

Laboratories: Mondays, 3:30-4:20pm, 4th floor Wendt Library

Office Hours: Mondays 4:20-5pm, 4th floor Wendt Library; Wednesdays 1:30-2:30pm, 1153/1154 Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery

Teaching Assistant: Emad Sadeghi (ssadeghi@wisc.edu)

TA Office Hours: Thursdays (2:30-3:30pm) in EH 4610 (except Sept. 22) Fridays (4-5pm) in EH 2321; Friday, Sept. 23 (4-6pm) in EH 2321

Textbook: Signal Processing First by McClellan, Schafer, and Yoder

Lecture notes from document camera in class:

Links of interest: 

  • Imaginary numbers are real: this is a nice sjet of videos giving some additional insight into imaginary numbers.
  • Spectrograms of bird calls.
  • Aliasing demonstrations using water:  and .
  • There’s a lot of fun signal processing in the 1997 film “Contact” starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. This clip shows how extra terrestrials are using amplitude modulation:  This clip has a nod to harmonic frequencies and Nyquist sampling: 
  • My second favorite signal-processing themed film is 1974’s “The Conversation”, starring Gene Hackman, Cindy Williams, and Harrison Ford.
  • The life of a signal processor:

Academic integrity:

Students are strongly encouraged to work together on homework assignments, but each student must submit his or her own writeup. Plagiarism of material written by classmates, book or article authors, or web posters is prohibited. Students must work independently on exams. Academic integrity will be strictly enforced. http://students.wisc.edu/doso/acadintegrity.html