DSP algorithm and software development on the iPhone/iPad platform

The ease of use of mobile devices and tablets by students has generated a lot of interest in the area of engineering education. By using mobile technologies in signal analysis and applied mathematics, undergraduate-level courses can broaden the scope and effectiveness of technical education in classrooms. The current mobile devices have abundant memory and powerful processors, in addition to providing interactive interfaces. Therefore, these devices can support the implementation of non-trivial signal processing algorithms. Several existing visual programming environments such as Java Digital Signal Processing (J-DSP), are built using the platform-independent infrastructure of Java applets. These enable students to perform signal-processing exercises over the Internet. However, some mobile devices do not support Java applets. Furthermore, mobile simulation environments rely heavily on establishing robust Internet connections with a remote server where the processing is performed. The interactive Java Digital Signal Processing tool (iJDSP) has been developed as graphical mobile app on iOS devices (iPads, iPhones and iPod touches). In contrast to existing mobile applications, iJDSP has the ability to execute simulations directly on the mobile devices, and is a completely stand-alone application. In addition to a substantial set of signal processing algorithms, iJDSP has a highly interactive graphical interface where block diagrams can be constructed using a simple drag-n-drop procedure. Functions such as visualization of the convolution operation, and an interface to wireless sensors have been developed. The convolution module animates the process of the continuous and discrete convolution operations, including time-shift and integration, so that users can observe and learn, intuitively. The current set of DSP functions in the application enables students to perform simulation exercises on continuous and discrete convolution, z-transform, filter design and the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). The interface to wireless sensors in iJDSP allows users to import data from wireless sensor networks, and use the rich suite of functions in iJDSP for data processing. This allows users to perform operations such as localization, activity detection and data fusion. The exercises and the iJDSP application were evaluated by senior-level students at Arizona State University (ASU), and the results of those assessments are analyzed and reported in this thesis.