Updated 1/10/2016
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
ECE 438 Digital Signal Processing with Applications
Class Information
Spring 2016
Prerequisites:
ECE 301 and ECE 302
Mode of communication with class:
E-mail!!! Read it as often as possible.
Course Meeting Time and Location:
2:30p MWF in EE 117 or MSEE 184
(watch e-mail)
Instructor:
Course Web Site:
Lab Web Site:
VISE Lab Web Site:
Professor Jan P. Allebach
Office: EE 148 (Do not look for me in my office!)
Phone: 765.494.3535 (Do not try to reach me on the phone.)
e-mail: allebach@purdue.edu (Please use this!)
https://engineering.purdue.edu/~ece438/
https://engineering.purdue.edu/VISE/ee438L/
https://engineering.purdue.edu/VISE/
Course Notes:
Digital Signal Processing in a Nutshell, Vols. I and II, Jan Allebach and
Krithika Chandrasekar. A nicely bound copy of Volume 1 can be ordered from:
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/digital-signal-processing-in-anutshell-%28volume-i%29/18805904 for $9.50 plus tax and shipping. PDFs of both volumes
can be downloaded from the course website.
Supplementary Reference (not a required text):
Digital Signal Processing, 3rd edition, John G. Proakis and Dimitris G. Manolakis, PrenticeHall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, ISBN 0-13-373762-4, 1996.
Course Outcomes:
A student who successfully fulfills the course requirements will have demonstrated:
i. an understanding of linear time invariant systems;
ii. the ability to manipulate discrete parameter signals;
iii. knowledge of how to use linear transforms;
iv. the ability to apply linear system analysis to engineering problems.
Lecture:
It is essential that you attend the lecture and take complete and accurate notes. While this is
generally a good idea with any course, it is particularly important in this course, because the
references do not contain all of the material that we will cover. We will not necessarily do
everything the same way that it is done in the references. In particular, reading the published
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Class Information
course notes Digital Signal Processing in a Nutshell should not be considered a substitute for
attending class. On some days, I will follow these notes fairly closely. On other days, I may do
things differently, or cover additional material and examples.
Quizzes:
Starting during the second week of the semester, there will between 5 and 8 unannounced
quizzes given during the semester on randomly selected days at the start of class. These quizzes
will be of 5 –10 minutes duration, and will be intended to test how well you are staying caught
up with the lecture material. They are also useful to determine whether or not you have been
attending class. They will be short questions that you should be able to answer if you have been
attending class. There will be no quiz during the first week of class. If you miss a quiz because of
a plant trip or illness, you will be allowed to make up the quiz, provided you submit suitable
documentation. For a plant trip, this will require a letter documenting the visit along with a copy
of your passenger coupon or other travel documentation. For illness, you will need a note from
your doctor. In any case, your lowest quiz grade will be dropped.
Homework:
Homework will be assigned on a weekly basis. Assignments will generally be due on
Wednesday at 5:00PM. They will be posted on Wednesday during the preceding week. The
assignments will be graded and returned to you, and solutions posted on the following
Wednesday. There will be no homework assignments due on the week that an exam is given. No
late assignments will be accepted for any reason. However, your lowest homework grade will be
dropped as discussed below under Computation of Final Grade.
The homework is a very important part of the course. You may read your lecture notes and
the text, and think that you understand the material. However, when you attempt to work the
homework problems, you will frequently find that you actually did not understand the material as
well as you thought you did. Also, the problems on the exams will be very similar to the
homework problems. Needless to say, your understanding of the material will not be improved if
you simply copy your solutions from a friend. You will benefit most from the homework if you
attempt to do the problems before consulting your friends. While it is perfectly reasonable to
discuss your approach to solving the problems with a friend, the final write-up of the solution
should be your own work.
Rules for Preparing your Solutions:
The grader will have to handle a lot of paperwork for the course, and wade through many
pages of handwritten solutions. It will be to your benefit in terms of maximizing your grade, and
will be greatly appreciated by us if you adhere to the following four rules when preparing your
assignments:
1) Do not use paper torn out of a spiral bound notebook.
2) Write on only one side of each page.
3) Put the problems in the proper order.
4) Staple the pages together before turning in the assignment.
MATLAB:
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Class Information
Knowledge of the MATLAB software environment will be a required part of this course.
MATLAB is an integral part of the laboratory and will also be required for solving some weekly
homework problems.
If you choose to work with others on MATLAB homework assignments, you must list all
collaborators’ names at the top of the assignments. As always, you are encouraged to work as
independently as possible.
Laboratory:
The laboratory is in Room MSEE 190. You will be assigned to a 3 hour lab session which
you must attend each week during the entire semester. You must attend and attempt the labs to
pass the course, since you do get an hour of lab credit. All laboratory material is available at the
web site https://engineering.purdue.edu/VISE/ee438L/. You are responsible for printing out and
reviewing the labs in advance of your laboratory session. Each lab session will begin with a quiz
covering the basic concepts underlying that week’s experiment.
If you or your lab partner must miss a lab session due to a plant trip, then you and your
partner will have to do that lab separately. Thus the partner who does not miss the lab session
will have to turn the lab in on time. Medical absences will be excused if they are documented.
Absence due to a plant trip will only be excused if the Lab TA is notified ahead of time. Lab
reports that are turned in late without an approved excuse will penalized at the rate of 10% of the
grade per day past the date due. Students who miss a scheduled lab period will penalized at the
rate of 10 points/hour of missed lab time. Students who show up after the quiz has been given
will not be allowed to make it up.
You will also be able to use the laboratory during periods when it is not scheduled for other
uses to work on homework or laboratory experiments. Please observe the rules for laboratory use
posted at the web site https://engineering.purdue.edu/VISE/ee438L/ at all times.
A number of the experiments require that you listen to digitally processed audio signals. You
will need to bring your own headset to the laboratory to do this.
All lab sections will meet during the first week of the semester.
Examinations:
There will be 3 one-hour exams, which will be given during the normal class period. The dates
for these exams are fixed as indicated on the attached syllabus, and cannot be changed. Please
schedule your plant trips and interviews so that they do not conflict with these dates. No exams
can be taken early. If you must miss an exam for any reason, you should discuss it with the
instructor as far as possible in advance of the date of the exam. At the instructor’s discretion, you
may be allowed to make up the exam, or you may be required to let your final exam count for
that portion of your grade, as discussed below. The instructor’s decision will be based on the
merits of your case. Only under extenuating circumstances will you be permitted to make up an
exam if you have not notified the instructor in advance that you will miss it. All examinations
will be closed book. No crib sheets will be permitted. However, some tables or formulas will be
ECE 438 Spring 2016
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Class Information
provided. This will be announced in advance of the exam. Each exam will typically contain four
problems that are similar to homework problems.
Help Session:
We will be holding a weekly help session on Monday afternoon or evening to go over the
homework. During the weeks when an exam will be given, the help session will serve as a
review for the exam. You will benefit from attending this help session, not only because you can
get answers to your questions; but also because you can learn what questions your classmates
have, and what the answers are for those questions, as well. You will benefit much more from
the help session if you try to work the problems in advance, and come prepared with questions.
The instructor will only answer the students’ questions. The help session will not consist of a
review “lecture”.
Computation of Final Grade:
Your final grade will be determined as a weighted combination of the homework, laboratory,
hour exams, and final exam. Your lowest homework grade and your lowest quiz grade will be
dropped. If your lowest hour exam grade is less than your final exam grade, then the grade for
that exam will be replaced by your final exam grade. Conversely, if the average of your three
hour exam grades (before the replacement mentioned above) is higher than your final exam, then
this average will replace the fraction 13/21 of your final exam grade. Your letter grade will be
based solely on your weighted final grade. This means that failure to do the homework or
laboratory assignments can definitely hurt your grade, regardless of how well you do on the
quizzes and exams. All grade components, except your lab grade, will be normalized to a mean
of 70 and standard deviation of 15 prior to computation of the final grade. For your lab, you will
receive a letter grade, which will be converted to a numerical value and combined with the rest
of the components of the weighted final grade. The weighting of the various grade components
in determining your final grade is shown below:
Laboratory
Homework
Quizzes
3 Hour Exams (13% ea.)
Final exam
25% (0.3 for quiz and 0.7 for lab report)
10%
05%
39%
21%
To give you some idea how the grades run in this course when I teach it, the table below lists the
average GPA for the past fourteen semesters when I have taught ECE 438.
Semester
Spring 1998
Fall 1998
Fall 1999
Spring 2000
Spring 2002
Spring 2003
Spring 2004
Spring 2005
Average GPA
2.34
2.48
2.40
2.40
2.44
2.49
2.49
2.52
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Spring 2006
Spring 2007
Fall 2008
Spring 2010
Spring 2011
Spring 2012
Spring 2013
Spring 2014
Class Information
2.46
2.48
2.49
2.37
2.40
2.59
2.55
2.51
During the most recent time that I taught this course, the grade distribution was as follows: A+ –
8, A – 3, A- – 4, total number of A’s = 15; B+ – 7, B – 1, B- – 6, total number of B’s = 14; C+ –
5, C – 2, C- – 6, total number of C’s = 13; D+ – 1, D – 3, D- – 1, total number of D’s = 5; F – 6,
total number of F’s = 6. The total enrollment in the course was 40.
If you dispute your grade on any homework or hour exam, you have one week from the date
that the graded paper was returned to you to request a change in the grade. After this time, no
further change in grade will be considered. When you return your paper for a regrade, please
attach a sheet to the front, indicating where you think that your paper was graded incorrectly.
Also, date the sheet.
Academic Dishonesty1
The members of the ECE faculty expect every member of the Purdue community to practice
honorable and eithical behavior both inside and outside the classroom. Any actions that might
unfairly improve a student’s score on homework, quizzes, or examinations will be considered
cheating and will not be tolerated. Examples of cheating include (but are not limited to):
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Sharing results or other information during an examination.
Bringing forbidden material or devices to an examination.
Working on an exam before or after the official time allowed.
Requesting a regrade of answers or work that has been altered.
Submitting homework that is not your own work or engaging in forbidden homework
collaborations.
Representing as your own work anything that is the result of the work of someone
else.
At the professor’s discretion, cheating on an assignment or examination will result in a
reduced score, a zero score, or a failing grade for the course. All occurrences of academic
dishonesty will be reported to the Assistant Dean of Students and copied to the ECE Assistant
Head for Education. If there is any question as to whether a given action might be construed as
cheating, please see the professor or the TA before you engage in any such action.
Web Site:
Copies of all class handouts including this one will be available at the ECE 438 web site
https://engineering.purdue.edu/~ece438/.
1
Policy statement is due to Professor Edwin Chong (now at Colorado State University).
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Advice for those considering graduate school:
Get to know your professor!
Class Information