An educational methodology for learning Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs) through Visual Algorithms

The Digital Signal Controllers (DSC's) are devices whose functionality is located between a microcontroller and Digital Signal Processor (DSP). These devices have important applications in many sectors such as education, control, communications, power electronics and signal processing. Despite of these features, there are educational issues in the use of them, e.g., lack of skills in development of embedded software, lack of educational resources and deficiencies in the aspects concerning the algorithmic thinking. Thereby, this paper proposes a methodology from educational perspective that intents overcome these issues using Visual Algorithms (VA's). These types of algorithms allow the approaching of the students to the DSCs, fostering the algorithmic thinking, which is required to create suitable embedded programs in function of the specifications of design. In order to achieve the mentioned aim, it has designed a software utility through the methodology, in which the users can generate their programs using Visual Algorithms (VA's), according to the requirements of a project or design.