The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to modern digital mobile and wireless communication systems. Topics include: overview of digital wireless communications, cellular concept and interference and traffic analysis; wireless radio fading channel modelling and characterization; modulation performance over fading channels; equalization techniques; multi carrier systems; spread spectrum techniques; receiver and transmitter diversity techniques; GSM standards, CDMA cellular systems; 3G and 4G systems, information theory of wireless channels; multiple antenna systems and space-time communications; and cooperative communications.

Knowledge Base:

Having successfully completed this course, students should be able to:

1. understand the cellular radio concepts such as frequency reuse, handoff and how interference between mobiles and base stations affects the capacity of cellular systems.
2. identify the techno-political aspects of wireless and mobile communications such as the allocation of the limited wireless spectrum by government regulatory agencies.
3. understand propagation effects such as fading, time delay spread, and Doppler spread, and describe how to measure and model the impact that signal bandwidth and motion have on the instantaneous received signal through the multipath channel.
4. understand the information theoretical aspects (such as the capacity) of wireless channels
5. describe and evaluate receiver and transmitter diversity techniques
6. understand multiple-antenna systems such as multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and space-time codes
7. understand basic equalization schemes commonly used in mobile wireless systems
8. understand basic spread spectrum techniques in mobile wireless systems
9. understand the concept of orthogonal frequency division modulation techniques
10. describe current and future cellular mobile communication systems (GSM, IS95, WCDMA, etc)
11. understand the principles of cooperative communications and describe their advantages and design issues

Fortnightly Assignments (15%); Midterm Exam (15%); Project (30%); Final Exam (40%)

Permission of course coordinator

1. Main: A.J. Goldsmith, Wireless Communications, Cambridge University Press, First Edition, 2005.
2. Suggested: T.S. Rappaport, Wireless Communications: Theory and Practice, Prentice Hall, Second Edition, 2002