Aims: To provide an overview of the evolution, current status and possible future development of satellite, terrestrial and cellular mobile systems.
Learning Outcomes: After successful completion of this unit students will be able to (i) describe the main features of modern communications systems, (ii) describe the main features of satellite and terrestrial digital broadcasting systems, (iii) explain the requirement for, and function of, these features, (iv) make first order link budget/coverage calculations for each type of system, (v) describe the deleterious effects of the atmosphere on the performance of each type of system and where appropriate quantify the performance degradation.
Skills: Elementary system planning skills e.g. link budgets, BER calculations, modulation/accessing scheme selection etc. - taught, facilitated and assessed.
Content: Wireless channels: slow and fast fading, time dispersion and frequency selectivity, frequency dispersion and time selectivity, inter-symbol interference and inter-channel interference, fading mitigation, variation of channel characteristics with application (mobile, portable, fixed) and environment (rural, suburban, urban).
Advanced modulation, coding and multiple access techniques: An overview of video and audio coding. Source encoding: MPEG-2/4 video and audio. MPEG data. Advanced channel coding methods, turbo and low-density parity check codes. Principles of OFDM modulation. Multiple access techniques FDMA, TDMA, MF-TDMA and CDMA.
Satellite Communications: Introduction to satellite systems for fixed and mobile services. Orbital mechanics and coverage. Satellite and payload design, Earth and satellite geometry, propagation factors, interference and antennas. Link budgets.
Mobile communications: Introduction to cellular system architectures. Frequency reuse. Problems of CDMA: near-far problem, power control.
Terrestrial communications: Fixed and portable access systems: wireless metropolitan, local and personal area networks. An overview of terrestrial broadcast systems.
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