Digital Communication Systems

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Detailed Overview/Outline

This course focuses on digital signaling methods, error-correction coding, multiple-access, spread-spectrum techniques, and bandwidth-efficient signaling in the context of wireless-radio and satellite systems. It starts with a checklist of questions and ideas that represent essential technical concepts behind all digital communication systems. When participants become proficient in these fundamentals and feel comfortable with the issues, they become adept at applying them to any such system--all telecommunication and radio systems share the same electrical relationships. Many applications of successful design examples are reviewed. The sessions strive for intuitive insight and the transfer of advanced technology in an organized way.

UCLA Extension has presented a highly successful five-day version of this short course since 1990. This course, abstracted from the original, emphasizes the architecture of modern communication systems.

Course Materials
The text, Digital Communications: Fundamentals and Applications, Second Edition, Bernard Sklar (Prentice-Hall, 2001), and lecture notes are distributed on the first day of the course. The notes are for participants only and are not for sale.

Daily Schedule

Day One

Data Encoding and Baseband Transmission

• Digital vs. analog performance; spectral density and autocorrelation; noise in communication systems; bandwidth requirements for digital data; sampling, quantization, and PCM coding; intersymbol interference and pulse shaping.

Bandpass Modulation and Demodulation

• Coherent and noncoherent detection of signals in Gaussian noise; PSK, DPSK, QPSK, FSK, ASK, and APK signaling--a geometric view; correlators and matched filters; detection theory; M-ary signaling: orthogonal vs. multiple phase signaling; bit error vs. symbol error probability.

Day Two

What the System Link Budget Tells the System Engineer

• Sources of loss and noise; EIRP, G/T, antenna gain, path loss. Why is free-space loss a function of wavelength? How much margin is enough? Where in the system is Eb/N0 defined? Where can it be modeled? Two Eb/N0 values of interest; noise figure, noise temperature, antenna temperature, system temperature. When does improved noise figure translate into improved SNR and when does it not? Training exercise in link constraints.

Channel Coding: Error Detection and Correction

• Code rate, coding gain, vector spaces, and sub-spaces; linear block codes, generator and parity check matrices; syndrome calculation, code capability, and erasure correction; cyclic codes and their algebraic structure; shift register encoding and decoding; convolutional coding, hard vs. soft decisions, and Viterbi decoding algorithm and how it finds the maximum-likelihood sequence; computer demonstration of coding principles; interleaving for channels with memory, Reed-Solomon codes, concatenated codes.

Defining, Designing, and Evaluating Systems

• A systematic approach for meeting bandwidth- and error- performance requirements; criteria for choosing signaling schemes for bandwidth-limited systems and power-limited systems; the subtle computations encountered when transforming from data-bits to channel-bits to symbols to chips; the step-by-step approach used for evaluating almost any digital communication system.

Day Three

System Trade-Offs

• Key design goals and constraints; system trade-offs; how to choose error-correcting codes that best match the channel. Training exercise illustrating system trade-offs in the areas of modulation and coding. Why do traditional error-correcting codes yield error-performance degradation at low values of Eb/N0?

Multiple Access and Spread Spectrum

• How to efficiently share resources among multiple users; FDMA, TDMA, CDMA, multiple access for wireless applications; spread-spectrum attributes; PN codes, feedback shift registers; direct sequencing; frequency hopping; tools to protect against intentional or accidental interference, processing gain. Why spread-spectrum techniques can't be used for improving error performance in channels degraded only by AWGN. Training exercise in spread spectrum design.

Sponsor Background:
UCLA Extension is one of the largest providers of continuing education in the United States. For more than 40 years, it has presented quality technical and management short courses for engineers and managers seeking to keep abreast of new and rapidly changing technologies. The instructors -- drawn from academia, industry, and government -- are well-respected experts in their fields who present both theory and practice.

The courses range from two-to-five days in length and attract participants from across the United States and Internationally. Subject areas include electrical, materials, and mechanical engineering as well as computer and communications engineering and technical management. Nearly 100 courses per year are held on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. Many of them are also presented under contract at company locations across the country and abroad.

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