Course Catalogue

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This course provides an introduction to wireless media and to the principal types of wireless and optical transmission systems. Electromagnetic wave propagation is explained, the concept of vector potential is introduced and its application to the design of complete systems. The components and architectures of optical communications systems are introduced. By the end of the course, students will be able to design both wireless and optical parameters and understand how these parameters determine the performance of communications systems. Students will be able to design and analyse basic wireless communication, satellite communication, and optical communication systems.

This course will be timetabled in blocks, typically one week in four.

Mandatory Entry Requirements

None

Recommended Entry Requirements

None

None

None

Final exam - 75%

Laboratory & Coursework - 25%

Due to the team based nature of the coursework and laboratories, it is not possible to reassess the laboratory practical or laboratory project work.

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

The initial grade on coursework laboratories will be used when calculating the resit grade. Due to the team based nature of lab working, it will not be possible to resit the laboratory components of the assessment. 

This course aims to:

■ give an understanding of the propagation of electromagnetic waves in free space, wireless and optical fibre medias;

■ enable students to design wireless channels with random noise, and optical fibres and calculate their performance in the context of practical systems applications;

■ give an understanding of the components and architecture of optical communications systems; and

■ enable students to design wireless communications and optical fibre communication systems.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Classify and analyse the propagation of electromagnetic waves in free space, absorbing media, and in wireless and optical medias, including reflection and transmission, fading, operating modes, polarisation attenuation, angle between transmitting and receiving stations, interference, noise, power density and energy flow (SM1p, SM1m, SM2p, SM2m, SM3m, SM5m, EA1p, EA1m)

■ design simple radio interface by applying the concept of transmission theory to link calculations, path loss including mobile and fixed propagation environment; (D1p, D1m, D2p, D2m, D3p, D3m, D4p, D4m, SM5m)

■ Outline and design wireless and optical links, and satellite links by applying appropriate end-to-end statistics and compute their properties including the link budget, constellations, orbital dynamics from Copernicus to Newton, orbital design, different orbital systems; (D1p, d1m, D2p, D2m, D3p, D3m, D6m, D8m, EP2p, EP2m)

■ evaluate the capacity limits of wireless and optical transmission systems arising from the fundamental properties of sources, receivers, detectors, and optical fibres (SM2p, SM2m, SM3p, SM3m, SM5m, EA3m, EA4m, EA4p, EA5m, EA6m)

■ analyse and design wireless systems, in particular unguided wave, radio communication, satellite communications, and optical fibre communication systems including the calculation of power budgets; and (SM4m, SM5m, EA3m, EA4m, EA5m, D6m, D7m, EP3m, EP6m, EP8m)

■ Outline optical fibre systems and architectures including: multiplex hierarchies for optical carriers; WDM and OTDM; repeaters, regenerators and amplifiers; fibre amplifiers; functional requirements for access, local area and global networks, SDH/SONET and ATM hierarchies;(EP8p, EP4m, EP9m)

Students must attend the degree examination and submit at least 75% by weight of the other components of the course's summative assessment. Students must attend the timetabled laboratory classes.