Signal Processing - January 2017 - 21

new approaches. This literature survey is the subject of the
Proseminar that, as a first step toward scientific work, lays the
foundation for performing hands-on research projects later on. It
takes about four weeks to accomplish the Proseminar.
During the Proseminar, students read books, papers, or
complementary work on a given subject in signal processing.
The topics are not limited to fundamentals but may also cover
very recent papers and approaches. To finalize the Proseminar, the third-year students summarize their results in a written
report that is checked by the supervising RA.
Through the intensive literature survey, the students learn
to understand, analyze, and summarize scientific papers.
However, the papers must be carefully selected. They are usually aligned with the doctoral research of the supervising RA.
Another challenge is to define a project such that it can be completed within four weeks while also considering the students'
prior knowledge.

p3 = (2.70, 5.27)
Source Location p ∗
Unknown

7
8

p2 = (5.19, 3.21)

p4 = (0.37, 3.54)
y
x

4
3

p1 = (2.69, 0.19)
1

FigUre 3. The setup of the Localization of Acoustic Sources experiment
that is part of the Communication and Sensor Systems Laboratory offered
to third-year students.

Project Seminar
After having reviewed the literature in the Proseminar, students investigate and solve a specific signal processing problem by reproducing an already existing approach. They
typically reimplement an algorithm from a published paper
and try to reproduce its results. During the project, students
are allowed to suggest their own modifications and extend
the methods to improve the results. Such creative contributions yield a bonus when it comes to grading. However, their
own contributions are not required and are primarily the aim
of the subsequent bachelor's thesis project. The reproducibility of the publications is essential, and the paper content and
quality must be checked by the supervising RA beforehand.
In addition to the reimplementation, students search for and
analyze scientific reference publications and, in the end, summarize the obtained results and their conclusions in a written
report. The outcomes of the Project Seminar are defended in
front of the research group and students in an oral presentation.
The duration of the Project Seminar is about two months.
For the students, the Project Seminar is one of the first
opportunities to develop skills in MATLAB, Latex, and BibTeX, which are necessary tools for scientific work in signal
processing and the basis for subsequent hands-on projects. The
aim of the Project Seminar is to practice applying methods
of signal processing to practical problems and to gain some
knowledge in a particular research area, which can be built
upon in later projects. As for the Proseminar, the challenge is
to define the project such that it can be completed on time.
Often, the workload for the RA who supervises the projects is
high, as regular meetings with students are essential to ensure
a high quality of work. Also, the corrections of the report often
include tedious linguistic corrections, since the students are
not yet acquainted with scientific English.
■ 5 Develop skills in MATLAB, Latex, and BibTeX
■ 5 apply signal processing methods to practical problems
■ 5 deepen knowledge in a particular field
■ K the workload for the RA who supervises the projects is
high in relation to the outcome.

FigUre 4. A microphone pair of the Localization of Acoustic Sources
experiment that is attached to one of the walls of the Signal Processing
Laboratory.

Bachelor's thesis project
The third year concludes with the bachelor's thesis project,
which usually builds upon the Proseminar and Project Seminar. The bachelor's thesis project is designed to last three
months. The length of the bachelor thesis is typically 40-80
pages. Approximately 100 students in ETiT finish their bachelor thesis each year. Similar to the Project Seminar, the students have to give a 20-minute presentation and defend their
work in front of an audience. The bachelor's thesis project
offers the possibility for students to be creative and to develop
new ideas and algorithms. Students can either explore new
ways of solving a specific problem, compare different methods and their performance, or improve an existing approach
by extending or enhancing particular aspects. In general, the
bachelor's thesis project is based on research questions provided by the RA. In our group, we offer hands-on experiments using, e.g., biomedical, audio, or ultrasound data, which
can be acquired by the students in our signal processing lab.
Outstanding bachelor's thesis projects can lead to publications
and visits to conferences such as the IEEE Workshop on Statistical Signal Processing, the European Signal Processing
Conference (EUSIPCO), or the International Conference on
Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP).

IEEE Signal Processing Magazine

January 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Signal Processing - January 2017