Digital Signal Processing

This course starts 9 October 2026 at 14:00 in LT2 and continues for 16 lectures on Monday/Wednesday/Friday until 16 November 2026, followed by a written test on Friday 20 November 14:00 in LT1. There is no lecture on Wed 4 November 2026 (due to the Wheeler Lecture).

Lecture notes

• Presentation slides 4:3, 16:10, 16:9 – for projector
• Handout version for printing – 4 slides per side of A4
• Large-print version of handout – 2 slides per side of A4
• Tablet-computer version of handout

Programming language

The programming assignments should be completed in Julia and handed in as a Pluto notebook.

A brief introduction to Julia will be given on Monday 19 October 2026 at 09:00 in LT2, as part of the 3rd year undergraduate LaTeX and Julia lectures.

• Introduction to Julia slides (2up, 4up for printing)

Demonstration and exercise materials

• Suggested Julia version: for Michaelmas 2026, I’d still use the 1.10 long-term support (lts) version, which you currently get with “juliaup add 1.10” and then “juliaup default 1.10”. (This is because the latest release 1.13 came out only a few days before the start of term, will have received less testing, and isn't fully supported yet by Pluto. After the end of term, I’d switch to that with “juliaup default release”.)
• Pluto notebook of some plots and demos

  Install Julia 1.10 with

  $ curl -fsSL https://install.julialang.org | sh -s -- --default-channel 1.10
  

  Then install Pluto.jl

  $ julia
  julia> import Pkg; Pkg.add("Pluto")
  

  and open the notebook with

  $ julia
  julia> import Pluto
  julia> Pluto.run(notebook="dsp-notebook.jl")
  

• Zoneplate sampler, zoneplate bitmap (lecture 5)
• touchtone.wav (Assignment 2)
• Touchtone specification: ITU-T Recommendations Q.23 and Q.24 (Assignment 2)
• fsk1.wav, fsk2.wav (Assignment 2)
• stars-blurred.png, stars-psf.png (Assignment 2)
• IQ sampled recordings of FM radio broadcasts (Assignment 3):
  • iq-fm-96M-240k.dat
    center frequency 96.0 MHz (= BBC Radio Cambridgeshire), sample rate 240 kHz, 30 s, 38 MB
  • iq-fm-97M-3.6M.dat
    center frequency 97.0 MHz, sample rate 3.6 MHz, 3.5 s, 102 MB, covers three FM radio stations
• IQ sampled (simulated) radar signals (Assignment 3):
  • radar1.hdf5
  • radar2.hdf5
• Image files bear.png and boat.png used in the demonstration (lectures 15–16, source)
• JPEG standard: ITU-T Recommendation T.81
• CST Part II Tripos paper exam questions on Digital Signal Processing from 2004−2020 and their solution notes

Related links

• DSP textbook with full text online: Steven W. Smith: The Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing
• This course is only a brief introduction into the basics of Digital Signal Processing. For in-depth coverage, have a look at the entire series of courses taught on the same subject in the Engineering Tripos:
  • 2P6 Fourier Transforms, Signal & Data Analysis (Part IB)
  • Module 3F1 – Signals and Systems (Part IIA)
  • Module 3F3 – Signal and Pattern Processing (Part IIA)
  • Module 4F7 – Digital Filters and Spectrum Estimation (Part IIB)
• comp.dsp FAQ
• Cool videos: mechanical implementation of the inverse DCT and the DCT.