Department of Electrical EngineeringDepartment Level Reform Grant
NSF Project# 0431818
Principal Investigator: Murali Varanasi, Professor and Chair, Electrical Engineering Department, UNT, Denton
Co-Principal Investigators: Oscar Garcia, Founding Dean, College of Engineering, University of North Texas (UNT), Denton,
Reza Mirshams, Associate Dean, College of Engineering, UNT, Denton,
Kathleen Swigger, Associate Dean, College of Engineering, UNT, Denton,
Jon Young, Professor, Department of Education, UNT, Denton.
Summary: An innovative Electrical Engineering (EE) program was started in Spring-2005 at the University of North Texas (UNT), Denton. Concurrently, a proposal with an operational plan for integration of project-based EE education and life-long learning pedagogy received generous support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The main objectives of this program are: i) to inculcate strong design skills in the students by means of education through real-life projects team-taught with UNT faculty and industrial partners, ii) to develop in the students the art of learning to learn (L2L) and thereby foster their life-long learning skills, and iii) to provide them with business and entrepreneurship education. The BSEE curriculum was designed to meet the above objectives most effectively. Based on our belief that learning of design skills, like any other learning, is a continuous process, and hence cannot be imparted in a burst mode, we adopted the "project every semester" model to satisfy the requirement i) above. This contrasts with the approach of inculcating design experience with one or two final-year capstone courses as followed at many universities. In this model, we have projects starting in the freshman year. In this year, while developing theoretical skills and analytical background needed for executing technical projects of the later years, they learn principles of L2L and ethics through two separate project-oriented courses. Thus the students are provided an opportunity to learn early on the key idea that they are responsible for their technical learning as well as approaches to ethical questions that arise in their student life as well as in their later professional life. While this approach satisfies the requirement ii) above, we are striving hard to give the students the ultimate learning experience by remodeling our regular class room courses also to suit an innovative pedagogic method that integrates L2L principles and project-orientation. Our total course package includes subjects in both core EE and humanities and social sciences in order to promote an all-round development required for their future careers. Specifically, we have in our curriculum the management subjects required to satisfy our objective iii) above.
Overview
Program Educational Objectives and Outcomes
Courses
EENG 1910 - Project I - Learning to Learn
Learning to Learn (L2L) is based on sound cognitive and pedagogical techniques that improve learning outcomes and make lifelong learning habitual. Students develop an understanding of how engineering and computer science are learned and how we can facilitate and encourage the lifelong learning process. Topics covered include consciousness and self-awareness, metacognition, learning styles, memory, language, reading, writing, problem solving, creativity and biology of learning.
Course Webpage - Spring 2008
EENG 1920 - Project II - Introduction to EE
Engineering Design Project Life Cycle-Requirements Specification, Architectural Model/Concept Generation and Evaluation/Feasibility Study, Functional Decomposition, Design-Principles for the design of a reliable, robust, maintainable and extendable system. Various levels of Testing Teams and team work, project management basics, tips for oral and written presentations, and an overview of ethical and legal issues, Introduction to Labview, MATLAB, VHDL and Spice. Implementation of small projects using these software. Project reports and Oral Presentations.
EENG 2610-Circuit Analysis
Introduction to electrical elements, sources and interconnects. Ohm’s law, Kirchoff’s law, superposition and Thevenin’s theorems are introduced. The resistive circuit, OP Amp, RL, RC circuits, Sinusoidal analysis.
Course Webpage - Fall 2007
Course Webpage - Spring 2007
EENG 2620-Signals and Systems
Elementary concepts of continuous-time and discrete-time signals and systems. Linear time-invariant (LTI) systems, impulse response, convolution, Fourier series, Fourier transforms and frequency-domain analysis of LTI systems. Laplace transforms, z-transforms and rational function descriptions of LTI systems.
Course Webpage - Spring 2008
EENG 2710- Digital Logic Design
Digital and Analog Systems- An introduction and historical perspective,Nnumber Systems and Codes, Boolean Algebra, Circuit minimization using Karnaugh maps and Quine McClusky's method, Modular design of combinational circuits, Analysis and Design of Synchronous sequential circuits, Asynchronous sequential circuits, Digital circuit testing principles.
Course Webpage - Spring 2008
EENG 2910 - Project III - Digital Systems Design
Digital system design projects that provide students substantial experience in logic analysis, design, logic synthesis in VHDL, and testing. Project documentation including all the phases of project cycle from requirement analysis to testing as well as a project presentation providing the students an opportunity to enhance their communication and presentation skills, are essential components of this course. Instructor may choose to include a mini-project for breadboard implementation with discrete components as a part of this course. (May be repeated for credit with consent of the instructor).
EENG 2920 - Project IV - Analog Circuit Design
Students will learn to use basic electrical engineering lab equipment; to build and test simple circuits in the lab, and to design and analyze circuits using CAD software tools. This course includes simulation and design experiments and a final comprehensive design project to complement the circuit analysis course. (May be repeated for credit with consent of the instructor).
Course Webpage- Spring 2008
EENG 3510: Electronics I
Introduction to contemporary electronic devices, terminal characteristics of active semiconductor devices, and models of the BJT and MOSFET in cutoff and saturation region are introduced. Incremental and DC models of junction diodes, bipolar transistors (BJTs), and metal-oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) are studied to design single and multistage amplifiers.
Course Webpage - Fall 2007
Course Webpage - Spring 2007
EENG 3520: Electronics II
Concepts, analysis and design of electronic circuits and systems are introduced. Topics include principle of DC biasing, small signal analysis, frequency response, feedback amplifiers, active filters, non-linear op-amp applications and oscillators.
Course Webpage - Spring 2008
EENG 3710: Computer Organization
Computer Organization versus architecture, MIPS instruction set, Arithmetic and logical unit design, Data path and control design, Enhanced sustem performance with pipelined design, Memory hierarachy and virtual memory concepts, Storage networks and other peripherals/ Microprocessor applications.
Course Webpage - Spring 2008
EENG 3810: Communication Systems
Introduction to the concepts of transmission of information via communication channels. Amplitude and angle modulation for the transmission of continuous-time signals. Analog-to-digital conversion and pulse code modulation. Transmission of digital data. Introduction to random signals and noise and their effects on communication. Optimum detection systems in the presence of noise.
Course Webpage - Spring 2008
EENG 3910 - Project V - DSP System Design
Study basic theory and applications of modern digital signal processing; develop basic understanding of real-time digital signal processing; develop ability to implement and simulate digital signal processing algorithms in MATLAB; develop ability to implement digital signal processing algorithms on real-time DSP platform.
Course Webpage - Fall 2007
EENG 3920: Project VI - Modern Communication System Design
EENG 3920 is the project design course for electronics courses. Students are required to design electronic communication systems with electronic devices such as MOS transistors, capacitors and resistors. Topics include LC circuits and oscillators, AM modulation, SSB communications, and FM modulation.
Course Webpage - Spring 2007
Course Webpage - Spring 2008
EENG 4020 - Advanced Topics II – Modern Control Systems
Materials taught in the advanced topic II are decided by the instructor each term/semester, reflecting the state-of-the-art technology progress in electrical engineering.
Samples of Student Projects
As a part of this grant we created a major design project environment modeled along industrial setting with state-of-the-art hardware and software tools. Students in the program were provided with an opurtunity to work on exciting projects in the areas of Sensors, Ethics and Professionalism, Circuits, Digital Systems and FPGAs, Digital Signal Processing and Communication Systems.
Representative samples of the students' projects are enclosed below.
Conference Papers and Presentations
Integrative Computing Education & Research (NSF ICER Workshop)
Preparing IT Graduates for 2010 and Beyond
GSW Conference 2006
Innovative Approaches to Engineering Education - ASEE Paper
Innovative Approaches to Engineering Education - ASEE Presentation
International Conference on Engineering Education
IEEE Frontiers in Education
News
UNT, TWU Dual Degree Program for Engineering and Math
UNT and Texas Woman's University have signed an agreement that will allow students to attend both universities, and simultaneously receive bachelor's degrees from both schools.
Publications
