Digital Signal Processing in Radio Astronomy: An Interdisciplinary Experience

The Digital Signal Processing in Radio Astronomy (DSPIRA) program is a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in Engineering and Computer Science Site at West Virginia University in the Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. The program combines radio astronomy and digital signal processing in a multidisciplinary way to provide educators with a framework to enhance their STEM class curricula. In this paper we discuss the details of the program conducted with 15 teachers over two summer sessions. Radio astronomy is taught through these distinct approaches Digital Signal Processing (DSP), Astronomy, Prototyping of the horn antenna and Curriculum Design with an emphasis on DSP. This program provides teachers with a working radio astronomy observatory and the requisite skills to build and operate it from scratch. We have also established an online repository of DSP and Radio Astronomy lessons.