Research Proposal:

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Research Proposal A Teaching Laboratory for
Real-Time Digital Signal Processing, based on the
Freescale MSC711xEVM Principal Investigator
Patrick Gaydecki Co-Applicant Bosco
Fernandes School of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering University of Manchester PO Box
88 Manchester M60 1QD United Kingdom Tel
UK-44 (0) 161 306 4906 patrick.gaydecki_at_manches
ter.ac.uk bosco.t.fernandes_at_manchester.ac.uk ww
w.sisp.manchester.ac.uk/dsp.shtml
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History of the University
The combined university can trace its origins
back to 1824 when the Manchester Mechanics'
Institute (which later became UMIST) was founded,
with Victoria University being founded as Owens
College in 1851. The new university has the
largest number of full time students of any
university in the UK (35,546), unless the
University of London is counted as a single
university. It also teaches more academic
subjects than any other British University. The
combined university counts over 20 Nobel Prize
winners amongst its former staff and students. It
has traditionally been particularly strong in the
sciences, with the nuclear nature of the atom
being discovered at Manchester, and the world's
first programmable electronic computer coming
into being here. Famous scientists associated
with the university include Niels Bohr, Ernest
Rutherford and Alan Turing. However, the
university has also contributed in many other
fields, and the mathematician Paul Erdos, the
author Anthony Burgess and the philosopher Ludwig
Wittgenstein all attended Manchester.
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University Resources

• Manchester has the largest income of all UK
  universities, standing at 514 million as of
  2004. In addition, the University has embarked on
  the largest programme of capital investment ever
  seen in British higher education with a 350
  million plan to deliver eight new buildings and
  15 major refurbishment projects by 2010.
• Top Ten UK Universities by Research Income
  (2003/04)
• The University of Cambridge 254.2m
• The University of Oxford 248.7m
• Imperial College 241.6m
• University College London 239.2m
• The University of Manchester 173.7m
• The University of Edinburgh 142.2m
• King's College London 140m
• The University of Southampton 111.3m
• The University of Leeds 107.7m
• The University of Sheffield 105m

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The School of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering
We are one of the largest schools of this
discipline in the UK, and home to a full range of
activities within the spectrum of electrical and
electronic engineering. In November 2001, the
School received full accreditation for its
undergraduate programmes (with the maximum score
in all of the assessment categories) from the
(then) Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE).
Only a matter of months later, it received a
Grade 5 in the Research Assessment Exercise.
These two external appraisals confirm us as one
of the UK's leading Schools of Electrical and
Electronic Engineering for both teaching and
research. The great breadth and depth of the
research interests of our academic staff ensures
a very high standard of lecture courses and
provides excellent opportunities for challenging
and stimulating projects. Our graduates are
highly sought after by employers. Independent
surveys on employability consistently show our
graduates to be the first choice of employers.
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The School of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering Profile

• 58 Academic staff
• 67 Contract research staff
• 50 Support staff
• 428 Undergraduate students
• 202 Postgraduate and research students

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The School of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering Undergraduate Programmes

• The undergraduate degree programmes offered by
  the School provide a comprehensive foundation in
  the core topics of Electrical and Electronic
  Engineering coupled with an area of specialism
  relevant to emerging engineering challenges.
• We offer the following programme titles
• Computing and Communication Systems Engineering
• Electronic Systems Engineering
• Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Mechatronic Engineering
• Computer Systems Engineering
• Each of these can be studied at BEng or MEng
  Honours levels. All our degree programmes can be
  combined with an accredited year-long industrial
  placement for the award of a With Industrial
  Experience degree.
• DSP is taught in the 3rd and 4th years to most
  programmes and typically attracts 70 students.

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The School of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering Postgraduate Programmes
The School offers a wide range of postgraduate
study opportunities, both full- and part-time,
which lead to the degrees of MSc, MPhil, PhD and
EngD, or to a Diploma. The MSc requires
satisfactory completion of examined lecture
courses and dissertation on a short project. The
MPhil, PhD and EngD are research degrees although
some lecture course material may be included in
the programme. Diploma courses are taught
courses, and are usually a subset of an MSc
programme. DSP is taught as an option module on
the Communications Engineering MSc and the
Electronic Instrumentation Systems MSc, typically
attracting 65 students.
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The School of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering Research Groups

• The University of Manchester is a specialist
  research-led university linking fundamental
  research with developments in industry and
  commerce. The School of Electrical and Electronic
  Engineering is fully committed to this principle.
  Our research groups are as follows
• Microwave and Communication Systems
• Control Systems
• Sensing, Imaging and Signal Processing
• Electrical Energy and Power Systems
• Power Conversion
• Microelectronics and Nanostructures

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The School of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering Digital Signal Processing Sub-Group

• Present Activities include
• Design of real-time audio-bandwidth DSP systems
  (Signal Wizard)
• Real-time magnetic imaging systems
• Inductive scan imaging systems
• Autonomous ultrasonic sensors for flood detection
  in oil-rig cross beams
• Electromyography for muscular fatigue monitoring
• DSP design for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA)
  radio telescope

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Introduction The Proposal
This proposal concerns the development of a
comprehensive teaching laboratory package for
real-time digital signal processing (DSP),
targeted towards both undergraduate and
postgraduate students. The emphasis will be
placed on the real-time nature of DSP, and to
facilitate this, a suitable Freescale Evaluation
Module (EVM), the MSC711xEVM, will be
employed. The laboratory package will represent
a complete and thorough introduction to the
science of real-time DSP other than the systems
supplied in the package, no other hardware or DSP
software will be required. The rationale will be
to educate the user by minimizing the time
required to install, configure and experiment
with the equipment. The host laboratory need only
supply, for each workstation area, a computer,
function generator, oscilloscope and audio
source/output facilities.
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The Package
The package will comprise five major components
Suite of example programs, to accompany the
tutorial exercises
Freescale MSC711xEVM, together with the
CodeWarrior Software
Full documentation for getting started and
step-by-step tutorial exercises
Windows-based user interface for the design and
execution of arbitrary complexity DSP routines
Accompanying website, containing both teaching
material and control software
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Freescale MSC711xEVM
The MSC711xEVM was selected as the target
platform since it is both cost effective and
based on the high-performance StarCore
Architecture. Since the board is supplied with
multiple interfaces including JTAG, parallel
support, serial interface, 16-bit dual channel
codec and Ethernet port, ample scope is provided
for the development and experimentation of DSP
algorithms that exploit these systems.
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Documentation Introduction

• The documentation will include a complete
  introduction to the system, step-by-step
  instructions for getting started, and a set of
  tutorial exercises for program development. The
  student will be taught how to program in SC140
  assembly code, C code and mixed-code formats.
• In the first instance, the documentation will
  take the student through a Getting Started
  Phase
• System requirements
• Powering up the system
• Connecting peripherals audio source inputs and
  outputs, function generator and oscilloscope
• Starting up Code warrior and downloading supplied
  test codes
• Test programs
• Audio In/Out
• Lissajou figures
• Pulsing

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Documentation Exercises
The documentation will describe laboratory
exercises, organized in four major
stages

• Stage 2 Intermediate C-code programs (to be
  developed by the student)
• Gain
• Mixing
• Pulsing
• FIR filtering
• IIR filtering
• Adaptive Filtering

• Stage 1 Simple assembly-code programs (to be
  developed by the student)
• Gain
• Mixing
• Pulsing
• FIR filtering
• IIR filtering

• Stage 3 Advanced C-code programs (to be
  developed by the student)
• Fourier transform and spectral analysis
• Hilbert transform
• Quadrature Signal Processing
• Envelope detection
• Sine wave synthesis
• Tone generation
• Modulation, encoding and decoding
• Vocoders

• Stage 4 Communication C-code programs (to be
  developed by the student)
• Stand-alone boot mode
• Interfacing through the serial port
• Interfacing through the parallel port
• JTAG
• Ethernet
• Codec support

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Tutorial Programme Suite
Answers to the programming exercises will be
supplied as fully working programs on an
accompanying CD. These programs will be complete,
stand-alone and ready to run modules, in both
source and object code format. Instructions will
be given for their assembly (or compilation),
downloading and execution.

• Simple assembly-code programs
• Gain
• Mixing
• Pulsing
• FIR filtering
• IIR filtering

• Intermediate C-code programs
• Gain
• Mixing
• Pulsing
• FIR filtering
• IIR filtering
• Adaptive Filtering

• Advanced C-code programs
• Fourier transform and spectral analysis
• Hilbert transform
• Quadrature Signal Processing
• Envelope detection
• Sine wave synthesis
• Tone generation
• Modulation, encoding and decoding
• Vocoders

• Communication C-code programs
• Stand-alone boot mode
• Interfacing through the serial port
• Interfacing through the parallel port
• JTAG
• Ethernet
• Codec support

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Windows-Based User Interface
During the period of the research grant, a
sophisticated and flexible user interface will be
produced. This will allow the student or user of
the EVM to specify a chain of DSP operations by
dragging and connecting appropriate icons within
a design window. Once the design is complete, the
software will generate the associated C code as a
text file, which may then be opened within the
CodeWarrior environment, compiled and downloaded.
In concept, this user interface will not be
unlike other such systems, such as Simulink
however, it will be optimised for the MSC711xEVMs
and will not require MatLab or any other third
party software, other than the CodeWarrior
environment. It will provide a very broad range
of DSP functions, enabling the operator to
quickly evaluate a particular algorithm. As such,
it will be attractive not merely as a teaching
aid, but to professional DSP system designers.
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Windows-Based User Interface
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Website
A dedicated website will be created as a specific
accompaniment to the real-time teaching
laboratory. It will include white papers on DSP
theory, algorithms, downloadable working programs
and hardware design, the latter focused on the
StarCore family of processors. Much of the
content, in a different format, has already been
produced by the applicant as part of his book
Foundations of Digital Signal Processing
theory, Algorithms and Hardware Design. In
addition to the teaching material, the website
will include real-time DSP and control software
which will communicate to the EVM via its
Ethernet port. In this manner, the student will
become familiar with internet-based control and
communication systems.
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Summary
The Real Time DSP teaching Laboratory represents
a complete, highly integrated approach to
practical training in this key discipline. Should
the proposal be funded, the University of
Manchester now plans to be the first to deploy it
within its rapidly expanding undergraduate and
postgraduate DSP teaching programme areas. With
appropriate marketing, the 5-stage package will
be seen as an indispensable aid to the teaching
of DSP in many universities and higher
educational establishments. In addition, it is
anticipated that the Windows-based user
interface will be a highly marketable product in
its own right, attractive to both the educational
and professional development markets.
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Resources Requested
It is anticipated that this research program will
require 12 man-months to complete, with 100
effort on the part of the researcher. Resources
are therefore requested for the associated
salary. In addition, UK universities now apply
Full Economic Costs (formerly overheads). With
respect to equipment support, resources are
requested to purchase the necessary EVM hardware
and a PC dedicated to the project. Finally,
funding is requested to meet travel and
subsistence costs in relation to presentation of
results at suitable conferences.
Staff Cost, Principal Investigator
3050 Research Associate RA1A, spine point
6 (including basic salary, USS and NI) Year 1
(100) 29124 Equipment Cost, Desktop
computer 770 MSC711xEVM 500 Visual
Programming Environment 1200 Other Cost,
Consumables 2000 Travel and
subsistence 3000 Institutional Estates
Costs 9000 Institutional Indirect
Costs 25000 Total 73644
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Appendix About the Applicants
Patrick Gaydecki is Professor of Digital Signal
Processing within the School of Electrical and
Electronic Engineering at the University of
Manchester, in the United Kingdom. He leads a
research team of thirteen staff and research
students that develops instrumentation and
software for audio, biomedical and nondestructive
imaging applications. He is also the principal
hardware and software designer of the commercial
Signal Wizard systems, which are flexible
multi-channel DSP filter boards based on the
Freescale DSP563xx family of processors. He
recently authored a book on DSP, Foundations of
Digital Signal Processing Theory, Algorithms and
Hardware Design, which includes chapters on
designing and programming with the DSP563xx
family. Much advice for these chapters was
generously given by Clayton Hudson of Freescale
Inc. In recent years, he has collaborated with
Clayton Hudson on the establishment of joint
University of Manchester/Freescale ventures,
including the establishment of a real-time DSP
teaching laboratory based on the DSP56311EVM.
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Appendix About the Applicants
Bosco Fernandes is a research associate within
Patrick Gaydeckis research group at the
University of Manchester, in the United Kingdom.
He is mainly involved in the development of
instrumentation for imaging steel reinforcement
in concrete, for the non destructive testing
industry. He has developed algorithms for
extracting vector orientations of steel bars in
concrete. He has also redeveloped methods for
detecting corrosion in steel bars by measurement
of phase changes in the received signals. He has
recently developed the electronics and associated
software for a sensor system used to measure
fatigue in welded steel components, using an
HC908 microcontroller. He is currently working
on a project to detect and image reinforcing
cable in concrete pipes, where the cable is
hidden behind a thin steel sheet barrier.
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Appendix
Signal Wizard Systems
Signal Wizard is a unique system, developed in
the School of EEE, for designing, downloading
and executing in real time almost any kind of
digital filter or audio processing algorithm.
The hardware unit is complemented by high level
user design software that requires minimal
expertise to use. Applications include noise
removal, inverse filtering, signal recovery,
musical instrument emulation and special
effects. Signal Wizard is now a commercial
venture, and sold worldwide via distributors in
the USA. Major customers include Disney,
Otologics, Sensimetrics, Plantronics, Wayne
Technologies, The US Government, and many
universities including Stanford and Cambridge in
the UK. In the first quarter of 2005, it was
ranked as the 4th best new product by the EE
Times, in the Ultimate Test and Measurement
Category. Typical customer responses have
been This product has been a complete pleasure
to use... I don't want to break what is working
so beautifully! The system is really great
Overall, I'm super impressed. The system
reflects deep thought, design talent, and
meticulous implementation. I love it!
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Appendix Signal Wizard 2.5 Software
FIR and IIR design area
Graphical display of filter
Hardware control download, gain, adaptive,
delay, mixing etc.
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Appendix Signal Wizard 3 (due for release 11/06)
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Multi-channel Audio System
Analogue Outputs
Signal Wizard 3
Digital Inputs
Digital Outputs
Analogue Inputs