2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Wireless communications remain a critical aspect of our everyday lives, and its ability to contribute to national priorities continues to increase daily. However, as emerging fields such as robotics, autonomy, and artificial intelligence increasingly capture student attention, enrollment and enthusiasm for wireless engineering have steadily declined. Ironically, these core areas of electrical engineering depend critically on wireless technologies for sensing, control, and connectivity. Meanwhile, the demand for skilled wireless engineers in industry continues to rise, creating a widening gap between educational pathways and workforce needs. This project responds to that challenge by rethinking how wireless principles are introduced to students, addressing not only the content of instruction but also its form and experiential depth.

Guided by experiential learning theory, this NSF IUSE project (DUE 2417446) introduces a problem- and project-based learning (PBL/PjBL) approach designed to transform the traditional introduction to wireless communications into a deeply engaging, interactive experience. Rather than beginning with abstract mathematical preliminaries, the redesigned course immerses students in real-world, inquiry-driven problems from the outset problems that require and motivate the underlying theory. Through advanced visualization tools, the project seeks to “make the invisible visible” and “make the abstract tangible,” turning complex signal behavior, channel models, and network dynamics into experiences students can explore and manipulate. By integrating storyboard-guided learning paths, interactive simulations, and a systematic learning objective matrix that aligns theory with PBL/PjBL activities, the course offers a holistic redesign of how students encounter and internalize wireless concepts. Together, these innovations aim to spark curiosity, deepen conceptual understanding, and ultimately rebuild the educational pipeline leading to careers in wireless communications.

So far, our team has developed and continues to improve a simulation tool aimed at helping students visualize radio frequency and communication concepts. Through an end of course survey and informal focus groups students have emphasized that the tool improved their ability to understand abstract communication concepts by providing visual and interactive representations of material that are otherwise difficult to grasp. Many noted that adjusting parameters and immediately observing the effects allowed them to build a more intuitive understanding of topics such as modulation schemes. The tool also increased student engagement, with students reporting that they revisited the simulation multiple times for homework, studying, and review of course concepts. This demonstrates the tool’s potential to serve not only as a one-time classroom resource but also as an ongoing aid for practice and self-directed learning. Some students went further to identify direct applications of the tool to real-world contexts, including Wi-Fi/OFDM systems and even their own senior design projects, confirming its relevance beyond the classroom. Current and future research steps are centered on continuous improvement of the tool as well as broadening the topics covered.