We live in an age where various forms of electronic communication are rapidly expanding and the need for new engineering graduates who are prepared to innovate, create, and work with these systems is evident. The communications lab presently serves to give the EE students at Cal Poly a laboratory experience in basic electronic communications systems.

Current Problems with the Laboratory:

• The thrust of the development of this laboratory should be twofold:
  1. upgrade some of the present equipment to present a better set of basic analog communication experiments that include noise analysis. and
  2. obtain equipment to allow more digital communication experimentation. It is in the latter area in which most of the development of new communications systems is taking place, i.e., cellular telephone conversion from analog to digital. It must be kept in mind that the world is still an "analog world" even though the message or information is digital. Therefore, the analog techniques of modulation (AM, FM, PM) still need to be learned and understood.
• In addition to actual communication equipment, computer support for the lab needs to be developed. There is a need for simulation programs (such as Accolade) which give the students added insight into system performance. It is desirable to equip this lab with adequate Pentium class PCs and appropriate communication application software.

Equipment Needs:

The basic approach in developing this lab will be to only provide one or two of most lab equipment setups. It does not seem very cost effective to have tens of thousands of dollars of depreciating equipment that is only used a few hours a week. To borrow a term from communications, a "TDM" (time division multiplex) approach should be used in which the lab is open for extended periods of time with flexible hours provided for students to perform the experiments. Several commercial companies (such as LabVolt) are producing modularized communication equipment (both analog and digital) which allow the students to truly experiment with different configurations as well as test for noise and performance. A high priority would be to acquire this type of flexible equipment.

• Pentium 90 PCs capable of running communication simulation programs such as ACOLADE, System View, LabView, etc.
• Acquire communication simulation software (ACOLADE, System View, etc.).
• Acquire modularized analog communication units such as the Analog Communication Training System from LabVolt. These are versatile and able to configure a wide variety of communication arrangements.
• Acquire modularized digital communications units such as the Digital Communications Training System from Lab Volt.

Total estimated cost for these enhancements will range from $25K-$50K, depending on the number of units acquired (4-8), which, in part, reflects whether or not the lab is actually offered in an "open-lab" manner.