NSF Award
9850785
The Albert Nerken School of Engineering of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art requests $63,780 to develop a Wireless Communications Systems Design Laboratory. This will make available facilities for undergraduate electrical engineering students to undertake design projects in wireless systems such as cellular telephony, personal communications systems PCS), indoor and outdoor radio, and mobile communications. The laboratory will be used by undergraduate students in their Junior and Senior years. In the Junior year, students will be introduced to the analog and digital circuitry and the instrumentation used in wireless communications system design in well-defined projects of limited scope. In the Senior year, students will work in engineering teams on year-long design projects. The students will be involved with all aspects of engineering design, including preparatory theoretical studies and literature searches, hardware, software and system design, project management and scheduling, component selection and ordering, and written and oral presentation and demonstration, all under the guidance and oversight of an expert faculty advisor. Cooper Union requests equipment consisting of test and measurement systems which accommodate the highly complex signal formats employed in wireless communications systems, and which can simulate and measure imperfections in the signal generation and reception and in the communication channel. In addition, the College requests equipment to establish a modular experimentation system based upon the VME bus standard, controllable by SUN workstations. This experimentation system will enable students to concentrate on only certain components and subsystems within a complete functioning wireless communications system. Students will be able to undertake projects in wireless communications, a field fundamental to maintaining this nation's global competitiveness.
