A comprehensive suite of tools for teaching communications courses

Both the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of Wyoming offer a wide variety of electrical engineering courses concerning communications. Additionally, required design courses offer opportunities for exposure to a wide variety of real-world communication systems and topics. Whether these courses are discussing the basics of analog and digital communications, or the details of advanced digital modulation schemes and error performance, until very recently, we have found it exceeding difficult to perform communications systems demonstrations and the subsequent signal analysis without a phenomenal amount of specialized hardware and personal effort. This all changed when both schools started using a National Instrument (NI) vector signal analyzer (VSA) and vector signal generator (VSG). Both of these functions are contained within a standalone PXI chassis. These hardware functions are enabled and controlled by Lab View and the vast array of toolkits available from NI. This paper discusses the use of this hardware and software in both the lecture and design environment.