This card showcases the innovative approach taken in the senior-level undergraduate course, "Principles of Communication," which merges the critical elements of digital and analog communication systems with the entrepreneurial mindset. This course is engineered to impart technical proficiency and instill an entrepreneurial mindset, cultivating curiosity, fostering connections, and stimulating value creation.

Our pedagogical approach involves a comprehensive exploration of key communication concepts such as signal waveform, spectrum and bandwidth, upconversion and downconversion, sampling, automatic gain control, analog and digital modulation, digital filtering, communication channel impairment, carrier recovery, pulse shaping and receive filtering, synchronization, timing recovery, linear equalization, coding and decoding. These theoretical concepts are brought to life through interactive classroom demonstrations and the immersive experience of hands-on Matlab simulation projects. Students are also offered the unique opportunity to engage with state-of-the-art technology through demonstrations with the TI Ettus Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP), thereby enriching their understanding and practical skills in communication system design.

Moreover, the course is framed within an entrepreneurial context, inspiring students to display curiosity about the evolution of communication systems, make meaningful connections among various system components, and create value by conceptualizing and fabricating cutting-edge communication solutions. This unique blend of technical knowledge and entrepreneurial thinking prepares our students to be pioneers in the rapidly evolving field of digital communication.

Entrepreneurial Mindset Integration: The course integrates the EM through projects involving GNU Radio for software-defined radios (SDR) and the Analog Devices ADALM-PLUTO SDR active learning module. Students' curiosity is piqued by real-world engineering challenges, fostering collaboration with interdisciplinary teams. They are empowered to identify opportunities and create value in digital signal processing applications. Hyperlinks are provided for easy access to EM project hardware and software (Updated July 2023).

GNU Radio for SDR: 

https://www.ettus.com/sdr-software/gnu-radio/, https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradio, https://www.ettus.com/product-categories/usrp-networked-series/ 

Analog Devices ADALM-PLUTO:

https://www.analog.com/en/design-center/evaluation-hardware-and-software/evaluation-boards-kits/adalm-pluto.html

Course Supporting Videos on YouTube:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXy4GxoZaC8&list=PLC8F2jWJoM0j47sOl_YzxclQ85aQU-iJR