Teaching Fourier Series Expansions in Undergraduate Education with the Help of the FouSE Android Application

Abstract

This paper discusses the teaching of Fourier Series concepts in undergraduate Electrical Engineering education with the help of an Android application, especially developed to that end. In order to better understand the links and implications, some of the basic Fourier series theory is briefly reviewed. The Android application has an easy-to-use, friendly interface, conceived to help undergraduate students test and assess the Fourier series expansions on a typical set of signals. The application also allows the students to control the total approximation error and the number of terms/harmonics used in the expansions. It has been found a very useful learning resource in the Fourier series context.

Teaching Fourier series with tone experiments based on smartphone applications

“…Smartphones can also be developed as low-cost measurement or sensing systems suitable for conducting experiments owing to their high-performance microprocessors and various sensors inside them [13], such as highresolution cameras, microphones, accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, GPS, flashlights, and loudspeakers [20]. Many teachers use smartphone applications (APP) to conduct experiments to assist teaching [16], such as vibration experiments [17], physics experiments [17,19,30], magnetic field measurements [23], signal and system laboratories [18], and Fourier analysis [24,26]. Some teachers even developed interactive APPs suitable for their own courses to assist teaching and improve learning outcomes [9,10].…”

“…Reis et al [26] used a smartphone with the FouSE Android APP installed to demonstrate Fourier series expansion in undergraduate education. The APP can reversely add a series of harmonic sine waves to simulate the desired periodic waveform, such as square, triangular, sawtooth, and half-sine waves.…”