Lecture notes and reading material
Preliminary lecture notes will be available in PDF format before the class (usually wednesday evening) while definitive lecture notes will be available only after the class has been held, in a timely fashion (usually, at latest a couple of days after the lecture).
Lecture notes will be complemented by possible reading material listed on the syllabus and further pointers, all available on the student area. Due to copyright issues, electronic copies of the material are only available to EPFL students officially enrolled in this course. Students interested in downloading this material can do so from the student area by logging in using with their GASPAR account.
This page will include the information relevant to each week lecture and corresponding material.
Week 1
TOPIC
Part I: Organization meeting, timetable. Overview of the course: fundamentals of signal processing; fundamentals of computer science and C programming; embedded systems and real-time control. Selected pointers of projects/activities involving innovative embedded system deployment in civil and environmental applications.
Part II: Refresh of C programming background: UNIX environment, compilation tools, variable types, execution flow management.
LECTURERS
Alcherio Martinoli and Ali Marjovi
Week 2
TOPIC
Consolidation of C programming background: operators (e.g., binary, logical), functions, and static structures (e.g., array, matrices); similarities and differences between compiled (e.g., C) and interpreted (e.g., Matlab) languages.
LECTURERS
Ali Marjovi
Week 3
TOPIC
Consolidation of C programming background: pointers, memory management, good practices in C programming (e.g., multi-file project organization, syntax indentation and commenting, use of debugging tools).
LECTURERS
Ali Marjovi
Week 4
TOPIC
Introduction to signal processing – Signals, series, transforms.
LECTURERS
Alcherio Martinoli
Week 5
TOPIC
Introduction to signal processing – Convolution, sampling, reconstruction.
LECTURERS
Alcherio Martinoli
Week 6
TOPIC
Introduction to signal processing – Filter analysis and synthesis.
LECTURERS
Alcherio Martinoli
Week 7
TOPIC
Introduction to embedded systems hardware and sensor nodes (focus on microcontrollers, sensors and communication channels). Concrete examples based on educational and field tools for simple sensing modalities (e.g., temperature, light).
LECTURERS
Alcherio Martinoli
Week 8
TOPIC
Introduction to realistic simulation (Webots), C programming in this environment, basic concept of perception-to-action loop, controller, sensor & actuator, communication channel modeling.
LECTURERS
Alicja Wasik
Week 9
TOPIC
Introduction to mobile robotics, the e-puck robot, and simple control architectures. Concrete example of memory and computation limitations in embedded system based on the e-puck platform.
LECTURERS
Alcherio Martinoli
Week 10
TOPIC
Introduction to localization techniques in mobile robotics and positioning systems.
LECTURERS
Alcherio Martinoli
Week 11
TOPIC
Traditional field instruments for environmental engineering (wind, temperature, humidity, etc.); energy management in field instruments; advanced field instruments for environmental engineering: wireless sensor nodes and networks.
LECTURERS
Alcherio Martinoli
Week 12
TOPIC
Real-time programming in embedded systems and field instruments; advanced field instruments for environmental engineering: mobile sensor nodes and networks.
LECTURERS
Alcherio Martinoli
Week 13
TOPIC
Advanced field instruments for environmental engineering: field robots and robotic sensor networks. Introduction to Distributed Intelligent Systems (follow-up master course) and course take home messages. Discussion of the course evaluation by the students.
LECTURERS
Alcherio Martinoli