GREducators

GNU Radio Educators

The purpose of this page is for the discussion of the use of GNU Radio in education, in the widest possible sense of the term - from Middle School through High School and Undergraduate to Graduate education, and for the general public.

GNU Radio Educators at GRCON 2018

We are planning a breakout session at GNU Radio Conference 2018. Please share your ideas here.

Educational Initiaves

Here are some educational programs which make use of GNU Radio in one way or another. Names refer to individuals on the #GNU Radio Project on Slack:

• @jdemel: "Hi all! I thought I'd just share my experience with GR in education. At our department we use it for a FM radio lab. It works quite nicely. Students can tune in to different stations and have a look at the different dsp chains for audio and RDS."
• @fwunsch: "Hi! So here is how we use GR: We have a communications lab course where we use GR to explain and receive FM in the beginning and in the following also demonstrate more advanced topics such as DSSS/CDMA and synchronization techniques. Besides that, we also use it in lectures every now and then to demonstrate the applicability of the stuff we teach. Another reason is that it tends to give the students that "wow" effect when they see rather abstract theoretical concepts in communications in the real world and hopefully sparks enough interest to attend further communications lectures."
• @funkylab: "I do occasionally hold small seminars with intros to GNU Radio, or I introduce signal processing basics with it to practically minded folks"
• @Marc Lichtman: "I'm going to want to pick your guys' brains, because this Fall I'm teaching/making a new SDR course to CS undergrads (seniors/juniors) at University of Maryland. So they have little to no experience with DSP and whatnot, although they are great programmers."
• @ffund: "I am using GR this summer in a program we are running for middle school and high school teachers. The goal of the program is to train them in wireless & networking technology, and have them develop lab activities that they will bring back to their classrooms and do with their students. We used GR a lot when teaching them about wireless, and some may use it in the labs they bring back to their classrooms (the program is ongoing)."
• @Richard Prestage: "My main use is as part of a "Research Experience for Teachers" NSF-funded program. The teachers get to hang out with university professors over the summer, "learn how to do research" (sounds very conceited on our part), and then in theory take what they have developed back to their high school class-rooms for the academic year. We're going to make a push to bring this more into the GNU Radio mainstream, but relevant links are : WVURAIL DSPIRA and Open Source Radio Telescopes. I'll be presenting more about these at the conference.
• @Kevin McQuiggin: "I am using GR to provide an introduction to digital radio to amateur radio ("ham radio") operators in the Vancouver, BC area. Amateur radio has supported innovative digital modes since the late 1970s, but the training requirements for newly-licensed operators have largely remained stuck in the analog realm. That, coupled with the hobby's demographics (average age 50+) has resulted generally in a lack of understanding of DSP and digital techniques among the greater ham population. GR is a great tool for introducing digital techniques."
• @dkozel: The Radio Society of Great Britain and the UK Microwave Society have sponsored the creation of a one day course that is an intro to GNU Radio. We will be covering the basics of analog signals and modulation, but we will also be covering DVB. I hope that at least a few will go away interested in implementing a few more of the digital protocols which are relatively exclusive to Amateur Radio. Happily the course materials will be GPL and Creative Commons."

Useful GNU Radio Wiki Internal Links

• Selected Academic Papers
• Tutorials

Past GRCON / FOSDEM Conference Papers

GRCON:

• Motivating Undergraduate Communication Theory Using GNU Radio, Peter Mathys, GRCON 2016
• Building Stronger Collaborations in Astronomy, Glen Langston, GRCON 2015

FOSDEM:

Intro to Open Source Radio Telescopes, Martin Braun, FOSDEM 2018

CGRAN Out Of Tree Modules

• None that I can see!

External Repositories, etc.

Digital Signal Processing in Radio Astronomy (see also their main web site).