Rapid prototyping system for teaching real-time digital signal processing

A low-cost rapid-prototyping system using Texas Instruments' (TI) TMS320C30 Evaluation Module (EVM) based on the MathWorks development software is presented in this paper. The rapid prototyping system serves as an educational tool in learning digital signal processing (DSP) and seeing the concept realized in real time. The development software modules, Simulink, uses graphical block diagrams to create models for real-time implementation and the real-time workshop (RTW), generates C code to be downloaded onto the EVM. The entire building process is fully automatic. This includes compiling, assembling and downloading of the real-time algorithms. The system was found to be well suited for learning real-time DSP algorithms for both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.