The photoelectric courses such as photoelectric technology, optical communication, optoelectronics, and photoelectric detection and signal processing, which own the properties of specialty, integrity and practicability, are usually difficult to grasp well only by classroom teaching. To help undergraduates to understand the photoelectric courses’ knowledge and improve their problem solving ability, developing the project-based integrated design experiments is an effective method to inspire the students’ interest and improve their innovative practical ability.
Firstly, the main properties of photoelectric courses’ integrated design are analyzed, and the basic principles of selecting the proper topics to design some training projects are summarized. A well designed project should be comprehensive, feasible and cost effective, and the project can be separated into several parts with gradually increasing difficulty, which is good for implementing it step by step and inspiring the students’ potentials. Secondly, some teaching research and practice of integrated design experiments are implemented based on the photoelectric technology course offered in our university, and four integrated design projects are introduced, which are measuring the rotating speed, direction and stop position of a rotating wheel, designing a laser reconnaissance warning and jamming system, making an analog and digital communication system by utilizing a white light LED and making a photoelectric detection system for blood oxygen saturation. The experimental arrangement and implementing experience are also provided and investigated. Thirdly, some crucial problems discovered in our teaching practice, such as optimizing the design contents and demands of project, helping students’ to overcome various difficulties, making teachers become experienced, and evaluating the project design results efficiently and accurately, are also analyzed and discussed to improve and perfect the quality of integrated design experiments. In conclusion, the photoelectric integrated design experiments have been introduced to help undergraduates to master the theoretical knowledge and train their problem solving ability, and our teaching practice experiences have been summarized and provided based on the photoelectric technology course, which can be spread to other photoelectric courses.