EECS20N: Signals and Systems

Instructor Guide for Week 15

This week develops applications that combine techniques of the course. The precise topics depend on the interests and expertise of the instructors, but we have specifically covered the following:

  • Speech analysis and synthesis, using a historical Bell Labs recording of the Voder and Vocoder from 1939 and 1940 respectively, and explaining how the methods illustrated there (parametric modeling) are used in today's digital cellular telephones.
  • Digital audio, with emphasis on encoding techniques such as MP3. Psychoacoustic concepts such as perceptual masking are related to the frequency domain ideas in the course.
  • Vehicle automation, with emphasis on feedback control systems for automated highways. The use of discrete magnets in the road and sensors on the vehicles provides a superb illustration of the risks of aliasing.

Problem session

To student pages.