Academic Year:
Spring 2018
Instructor:
Prof. Jayakrishnan Nair
Motivation:
The course is a core course in the fourth semester of the undergraduate electrical program, and is relatively easy compared to the other courses in this semester. The course is an introduction to signal processing and is a crucial course if you are interested in communication networks. The course is quite mathematical and involves analysis of signals and systems, as the name suggests.
Course Content:
The topics covered in my semester were- Definition of Signals and LTI systems, BIBO stability, impulse responses, Fourier and Laplace transforms (Continuous time and Discrete time), Sampling and Reconstruction of a signal and DSP(Digital Signal Processing). .
Feedback in Lectures:
The professor does not use any slides, and explains everything on the board. The professor uses proper illustrations and explains all the concepts from scratch even though some of the topics are already known to the students. Taking notes is strongly recommended. The professor is brilliant in explaining the concepts and doesn’t shy away from doing it over and over. However, the topics are quite easy to follow, if one pays attention.
Feedback on quizzes and exams:
The grading is divided into –
4 quizzes – 20%, mid-sem – 30%, end-sem – 50%, assignments – 10%
The mid-sem exam was pretty straightforward and easy. There were supposed to be 4 quizzes but due to time constraints the 20% of the quizzes was distributed among the 3 quizzes already taken only. The end-sem had some pretty good questions that really tested ones basic knowledge of the subject. The quizzes included the topics covered immediately before they were taken, so being present in the lecture and a little bit of revision took care of them. The assignments are easy or mildly tough depending on the topics involved in them, and accordingly may take 2-3 hours of ones time.
Pre-requisites:
This is a basic course and is taught from scratch with, even though a lot of concepts are already known to students, including laplace transforms(from MA) and Nyquist stability criteria(depends if it has been covered in EE204).
Difficulty:
Easy. The mid-sem was quite easy, while the end-sem was a bit twisted. The quizzes were pretty easy too if you are regular in lectures and know what was covered before the quiz.
Books:
No particular book was followed in the lectures, but one book was recommended for self-study – A.V. Oppenheim, A.S. Willsky and I.T. Young, Signals and Systems
Grading Statistics:
The grading follows a normal/gaussian pattern, and is relative.
