Refreshing Digital Communications Curriculum with RFID Technology: A Participatory Approach

In this article, we explore new opportunities to freshen up the curriculum of a lecture-based course on digital communication. In particular, the radio frequency identity (RFID) technology is introduced to design a hands-on exercise, in which the software-defined radio (SDR) hardware and the Matlab programming environment are respectively used as the experimental platform and the post-processing tool. Binary images generated by different shapes and patterns are customised and encoded into RFID tags as the electronic product code (EPC). After acquiring the digital signal from SDR hardware, the students performed a decoding task to identify the customised data. In this way, they not only acquire deeper understanding of the building blocks of digital communication, but also they are highly motivated by being kept within practical constraints of the course in a self-directed manner. Survey results from the students reveal that this participatory coursework was perceived as intellectually stimulating.