Twenty-five years of J-DSP Online Labs for Signal Processing Classes and Workforce Development Programs

TL;DR

This paper reviews the 25-year history and recent developments of the Java-DSP online simulation platform, highlighting its role in signal processing education and workforce programs, supported by NSF grants.

Contribution

It documents the evolution, new features, and deployment of J-DSP, including mobile versions and its impact on education and workforce development over 25 years.

Findings

J-DSP has been continuously used in universities since 2000.

The platform supports diverse DSP exercises including quantum Fourier transform.

J-DSP has contributed to NSF workforce development programs.

Abstract

This paper presents the history of the online simulation program Java-DSP (J-DSP) and the most recent function development and deployment. J-DSP was created to support online laboratories in DSP classes and was first deployed in our ASU DSP class in 2000. The development of the program and its extensions was supported by several NSF grants including CCLI and IUSE. The web-based software was developed by our team in Java and later transitioned to the more secure HTML5 environment. J-DSP supports laboratory exercises on: digital filters and their design, the FFT and its utility in spectral analysis, machine learning for signal classification, and more recently online simulations with the Quantum Fourier Transform. Throughout the J-DSP development and deployment of this tool and its associated laboratory exercises, we documented evaluations. Mobile versions of the program for iOS and Android were also developed. J-DSP is used to this day in several universities, and specific functions of the program have been used in NSF REU, IRES and RET workforce development and high school outreach.