Project Hardware/Software (B.Sc. Computer Engineering)
Contact: Erik Fleischhauer
Type: Laboratory with 3 SWS
Documentation & Language:
- Documentation: Learning material will be provided in terms of hardware documentations as well as internal and external material. Parts of the material are provided in English, parts in German language.
- Supervision: German
Registration: via RWTHonline
Dates
Only takes place in Winter term.
Introductory session (mandatory attendance):
1. Semester week (from 09.10.2022 to 13.10.2022)
Date: Specific date corresponding to the specific assigned group/institute
Place: Lab room of the corresponding institute (can be found in RWTHmoodle)
Dates: individual corresponding to assigned Institute/Group
- 09.10.2023-13.10.2023: V0 | Introductory session (mandatory, in person)
- 16.10.2023-20.10.2023: V1 | In-person session (mandatory)
- 23.10.2023-27.11.2023: V2 | In-person session (mandatory)
- 30.10.2023-03.11.2023: V3 | In-person session (mandatory)
- 06.11.2023-10.11.2023: V4 | In-person session (mandatory)
- 13.11.2023-17.11.2023: V5 | In-person session (mandatory)
- 20.11.2023-08.12.2023: V6-8 | Project phase 1 (constultation-hour style)
- 11.12.2023-15.12.2023: V9 | Interim presentation (mandatory, in person)
- 18.12.2023-19.01.2024: V10-12 | Project phase 2 (constultation-hour style)
- 22.01.2024-26.01.2024: V13 | Final presentation (mandatory, in person)
Evaluation
The results of the evaluation of the last years are summarized below.
These results include 5 groups at 5 different institutes.
Content
The project hardware/software is part of the Bachelor's degree program Computer Engineering and is embedded in the 3. semester of the curriculum.
It is held in parallel at five institutes and organized by the IKS. The project consists of an introduction phase and a project phase. The introduction phase as well as the interim presentation and final presentation are mandatory events that take place in-person. The remaining sessions of the project phase are held in the style of consultation hours, which are individually organized by the corresponding institutes.
The offered project as well as the weekly session date differ between the insititutes. Students have to register for the project in RWTHonline and can select their favorite institute by selecting groups in terms of preference scores. The assignment of groups to the specific institutes can be obtained from the following list:
- Group 1: Institute of Communication Systems (IKS) - Audio spectrum analyzer | Thursdays 15:30-17:30
- Group 2: Chair for Software for Systems on Silicon (ICE) - Space station tracker | Thursdays 15:30-17:30
- Group 3: Chair of Integrated Digital Systems and Circuit design (IDS) - DIY Alexa - Voice-controlled socket | Tuesdays 08:30-10:30
- Group 4: Chair of Intelligent Control Systems (IC) - System identification | Mondays 14:30-16:30
- Group 5: Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Drives (ISEA) - Smart solar panel | Thursdays 15:30-17:30
Laboratory program
In this laboratory, students learn the basics of hardware-dependent programming with microcontrollers. For this, Nucleo development boards are used, which are based on an STM32 platform.
Students work in groups of 2-4 in the entire laboratory (this includes the project phase as well as the introduction phase).
In the introduction phase, students learn the basics of hardware-dependent programming of microcontrollers in C programming language. Supplementary material will be provided which has to be read at home. The understanding will be checked by means of a test at the beginning of the in-person sessions. The remainder of the sessions consist of a programming phase and a test at the end. In the later test, the code and results of the programming phase have to be presented and will be discussed.
During the project phase, students work on the specific project, which was given by the corresponding institute. Thereby, they can apply and further improve the skills from the introduction phase. The supervisors of the corresponding institute offer weekly consultation hours. During the interim presentation students receive feedback from their supervisors. In the final presentation students show and explain the result of their project work to other students and the supervisors.