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ELEC_ENG 395, 495: A Hands-on Course in Communication Systems


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Prerequisites

ELEC_ENG 307- Communication Systems

Description

A laboratory-based course on the principles of analog and digital communication systems and applications of software-defined radios. Laboratory work will begin with computer simulations using GNUradio companion and move to software/hardware platforms, specifically the Universal Software Radio Peripherals from National Instruments (NI USRP). Participants will learn how to transmit, receive, analyze and process radio signals. The class will also form one or two large groups to work on a competitive project, the goal of which is to program radios to reliably transmit as many packets as possible in presence of unknown/hostile interference.

REQUIRED TEXT: None.

COURSE COORDINATOR: Dongning Guo

COURSE GOALS: To introduce students with principles of communication systems and technical background needed to program software-defined radios. To introduce students with emerging wireless technologies and trends. To train students to use the NI USRP platform to experiment with communication techniques.

PREREQUISITES BY TOPIC:

  1. Analog modulation and demodulation.

DETAILED COURSE TOPICS:

  1. Introduction to software defined radios and GNUradio software.
  2. The Universal Software Radio Peripherals system.
  3. Quantization; Source and channel waveforms.
  4. Channels; Modulation; Demodulation; Noise.
  5. Detection; Coding; Decoding.
  6. Wireless communication.
  7. OFDM.

PROJECT: Students will work together as a group on a large project. Each student must document his/her contributions every week. GRADING: Grading is based on individual student’s contribution to the large project.

OBJECTIVES: When a student completes this course, s/he should:

  1. understand basic principles of digital communications;
  2. understand the basic principles of software-defined radios;
  3. be able to apply and implement basic radio technologies using software defined radios.