Teaching and Research Laboratories

The Division of Computing Studies maintains several teaching and research laboratories used to support courses. Some examples are described below.

Division Computing Classroom and Software Laboratory

The Academic Center building contains division-specific teaching and research laboratories. Included is a large computer laboratory, used to teach many of the software-related lectures and laboratories. These labs are set up to facilitate group projects that are emphasized in the upper-level software classes.

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This lab is used by both Computing and Electronics programs, supporting both introductory and advanced courses in digital systems. The laboratory is more than 1130 square feet and has 16 individual stations set up to support design, bread boarding and testing of logic circuits. Each station provides a power supply and oscilloscope. There is ample space for students to work in pairs at each of the stations. The laboratory also has several stand-alone computers with software for simulating logic circuits.

The Electronics and Digital Systems Lab is also used as the PLC (programmable logic controllers) lab. Five stand-alone computers are connected to PLCs (SLC500 and Micrologix family), and have:

• Ladder-logic Programming Software (RSLogix500)
• Emulation Software
• Data Acquisition Software
• HMI (Human-machine interface)

Some of the PLCs are connected to hardware (motors, pneumatic valves and cylinders, etc.) so students can realize their control strategies. The computers in this room have software for PCB (Printed Circuit Board) layout. The attached printers produce a negative that is used in the Etching room for exposing the photosensitive PCB.

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The Networking Laboratory is used as the teaching laboratory and is intended to be reconfigured several times each semester to enhance the students' learning experience.

Currently, 15 Intel-based PCs and five network hub/switches are used to emulate the connectivity of a small manufacturing company. The computers are configured as workstations, servers, routers and firewalls, depending on their capabilities and the needs of the classroom experience.

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Operating Systems Laboratory

This laboratory is used for operating system and computer network instruction and research. On the instruction side, this lab houses the embedded Linux development server and is used to hold demonstrations for Internet networking protocols programming projects.

On the research side, graduate students use the equipment in this lab for AOS and Networking research. The OS research is primarily related to Embedded Linux, while the networking research is aimed at network security issues.

Currently, the lab houses 10 Sun Ultra Sparc workstations running Red Hat Linux 6.2 and six PCs running various versions of Windows and Linux. The PCs have an assortment of wireless (IEEE 802.11b) adaptors and network engines installed. An 802.11b access point, a 10/100T ethernet hub and a 10/100T ethernet switch are also installed. There are plans to convert an additional SUN Sparc 20 into a network router/firewall to isolate the research in the lab from the rest of the campus.

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The DSP Laboratory is currently equipped with Motorola's DSP56K Evaluation Modules for developing real-time hardware and software products to support a new generation of wireless, telecommunications and multimedia applications. The room also supports DSP labs using MATLAB, and is used for labs and research on network and communications. Recently, we added a computer server and a hub to form a local area network (LAN). In addition, an OPNET system is installed. 

The lab has supported several graduate student projects and theses, many resulting in published papers. The DSP Lab has received donations from Motorola, Intel, C-cube Company, and DaDips Cop. One of our former students, Ming Yang, donated two new Pentium computers to the DSP lab.

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The Internet-Enabled Embedded Devices Laboratory houses several TINI devices connected to 8x1-wire development boards. Currently there are six TINI/8x1-wire development platforms and three PCs with TINI development software installed. The PCs can connect via serial cable to the devices to load kernel software and firmware. The devices are also connected to the campus network providing access from anywhere on the Internet. This allows students to perform their labs without being on campus. A remote camera is connect to one of the PCs and provides a remote capture of the 8x1-wire LEDs. This camera allows remote students to see if the code is modifying the external state properly.

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The lab contains desks and a dozen stand-alone PC’s running Windows 98. The older operating system provides the ease of access to the machine level needed to facilitate work in the low level programming exercises this laboratory is intended to support.

Two other computers in the laboratory are connected to the ASU network to provide Internet access, student disk storage, and an attached laser printer.

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