Free Open Source Software in Electronics Engineering Education: A Survey

Since the last two decades, much attention has been paid to Electronics Engineering (EE) education in India. Various commercial software tools and simulator such as mathematical application packages, electronics CAD tools, learning management systems, multimedia tools and general purpose tools supports EE education. Traditionally, proprietary software packages such as OrCAD Pspice, MATLAB, LabView, Multisim and others too are widely practiced and well integrated in electronics engineering curricula of various Universities nationwide. In today's market, there are plenty of software tools and packages; however, most of them are expensive. The high cost of standard commercial packages is often hardship for students and faculties. Selecting various appropriate tools for academic use is considered as one of the key challenges in EE education. Over recent years, an alternative trend based on Free Open Source Software (FOSS) has gained momentum in higher education due to several benefits such as cost, license management flexibility, access to source code, security and stability etc. Presently, a plethora of open source software tools and resource related to EE can be deployed in teaching and learning process of EE education. In this communication, a short exposition of Free Open Source Software useful in electronics engineering education and research is presented. A brief outlook of FOSS packages, their web addresses and major highlights are also presented. The overall aim of this paper is to create awareness among instructors and students to impart active and self learning using FOSS.