Wireless Communications Online Course & Certificate

Wireless communications is a fast growing segment of the communications industry, with the potential to provide high-speed high-quality information exchange between portable devices located anywhere in the world. Potential applications enabled by this technology include multimedia Internet-enabled cell phones, smart homes and appliances, automated highway systems, video teleconferencing and distance learning, and autonomous sensor networks, to name just a few.

Wireless Communications is a course that provides an introduction to the basic design principles and analysis of modern wireless communication systems. The topics covered will include: introduction to wireless communications, the evolution of wireless communications – Second Generation (2G) and Third Generation (3G) systems, the cellular concept – system design fundamentals, mobile radio propagation – large scale path loss, mobile radio propagation – small scale fading and multipath, modulation techniques for mobile radio, equalization, diversity, multiple access techniques for wireless communications, and wireless systems and standards.

The goal of this course is to help graduate students to

• learn about different wireless communication technologies
• understand the basic components of a wireless communication system

No prior knowledge of wireless technology is required.

 Students will be assigned 5 homework assignments, and 1 final exam. 

• Module 1: Overview of Wireless Communications 
  
  History 
  Wireless standards: cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, UWB 
  Wireless Channel Modeling
  
  Module 2: Path loss and shadowing models 

Statistical fading models 
Narrowband/wideband fading models 

Module 3: Digital Modulation and its Performance

Quick review of AWGN channel performance 
Fading channel performance, overview of adaptive modulation 

Module 4: Capacity of Wireless Channels

Ergodic capacity 
Outage capacity 

Module 5: Diversity in Fading channels

Time diversity, frequency diversity, and spatial diversity 
Receiver spatial diversity: selection combining, threshold 
Combining, maximum ratio combining, equal-gain combining 
Transmitter spatial diversity: channel unknown, channel known 

Module 6: Multiple Antenna and Space-time Communications

MIMO channel model 
MIMO channel capacity 

Module 7: Multiple Access Schemes

FDMA, TDMA, CDMA 

Module 8: Cellular Systems

2G, 3G, 4G 

 This course is Instructor-led and delivered through our award-winning online Learning Management System.