NEW LEARNING FRAMEWORK FOR 'RADIO SIGNALS' COURSE IN THE RADIOELECTRONIC ENGINEERING DEGREE

This paper presents a new practical framework for the learning of Radio-Signals at in the Radioelectronic Engineering degree. It is based on low-cost types of equipment and free software that would enable us to design practices and reinforce complex and theoretical concepts in the teaching and learning context. Until a relatively short time ago, the practical sessions and their design were a complex issue due to the high costs of the equipment to be involved. Due to the particular nature of our studies, the practical sessions of radio signals require the use of a rather particular expensive and restricted equipment. Furthermore, these sessions are to be delivered only in the classroom site and within the practical sessions schedule. Our proposal consists of a collection of exercises of several types, which especially use the SDR (Software Defined Radio). The recent outbreak of SDR, where traditionally radio hardware components are substituted by software, mainly the SDR based on a REALTEK 2832u Chipsets, has opened the way to develop the student's training at a very low cost, both during in-classroom sessions and as homework. Some of the contents of the practical sessions which have been delivered using this new technology are: antenna design, AM modulation and FM modulation, AIS (Automatic System Identification) defined by software, detection of signals defined by ITU (International Telecommunication Union) and reception of WEFAX-RTTY-NAVTEX. This document presents the first results of the different practical sessions, which were carried out by the students, and explain the hardware and software that was used to develop this new learning framework, which is in constant evolution. It has proved to be a powerful tool for teaching in the Radioelectronic Engineering degree and it can be expanded to further university courses or other studies levels, related to Telecommunications and Radio Communications.