Courses / Module

• Overview of communications
o Use of communication systems in the real world (mobile phone, satellite television, etc)
o The nature of data, analogue/digital, bandwidth requirements – real-time versus non-real-time communications (e.g. phone vs email)
o Communication signals – electrical, optical, quantum, electromagnetic (radio)
• Communication concepts
o Basic communication concepts
¿ Transmitter, receiver, channel, additive noise
¿ Bit rate, power, the dB and dBm – amplification/attenuation/SNR/Noise figures
¿ Point-to-point vs broadcast systems
¿ Channels properties and utility – co-axial cable, twisted pair, optical fibre, air interface
o Signals and noise
¿ Communications by means of signals – definition of a signal
¿ Signal characterisation in the time and frequency domain
¿ Analogue to digital conversion of signals
¿ Noise definition – noise margin, thermal noise, white noise, Friis equation
o Analogue and digital modulation (and demodulation)
¿ The need for modulation, introduction to basic analogue modulation types (AM/FM)
¿ Introduction to basic baseband and band-pass digital modulation
¿ Study of different types of AM time domain and frequency domain
¿ AM transmitter and receiver architectures
o Communication limits and channel multiplexing
¿ Power, noise and channel capacity
¿ Spectrum as a limited resource – spectrum allocation issues
¿ Channel multiplexing – TDM, FDM, spatial multiplexing (GSM use case example)
o Communication networks and ethical issues
¿ Communication network topologies – pros/cons, packet concept, congestion concept
¿ Ethical issues related to telecommunications – carbon footprint, security, health