A considerable improvement of the traditional FPGA-based digital design methodology by using an Arduino sensor board

Abstract

[EN] The traditional way to learn and teach Digital Systems has been changing over the last decades by the use of Hardware Description Languages (HDL) and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) evaluation boards. The use of an Arduino development kit with different sensors connected to the FPGA upsizes the students experience in the area of Digital Systems. A temperature and humidity ambience sensor combined with an ultrasound sensor to measure distance can effectively be used by students to implement its first serial data converter that takes the sensor data and shows the obtained values from the Arduino in the seven segment display of the FPGA kit. After three years of experience in the new grade courses at the UPV Telecommunication School the number of students enjoying this new way to learn the subject Fundamentals of Digital Electronics (FSD) has dramatically risen up with an increase of a 20% in the number of students that pass the subject and that select the electronic branch of telecommunication studies in the future semesters.