ET80564 Digital Communications

Course Name: ET80564 Digital Communications

Course Information

• The course is given for the program:Undergraduate/Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering
• Credit units: 10
• Contact hours: 36  
• Study term: Term 1
• Place: University of Rwanda, College of Science and Technology, Nyarugenge Campus
• Responsible lecturer:Charles Kabiri, PhD
• Syllabus: Available

 Course objective:

In the last few decades, digital communication has drastically improved our quality of life. Amenities such as fax machines, pagers, cell phones, and internet, are now considered indispensable. None of them are possible without digital communication. 

This course explores elements of the theory and practice of digital communications. The course will 1) model and study the effects of channel impairments such as noise and distortion, on the performance of communication systems; 2) introduce signal processing, modulation, and coding techniques that are used in digital communication systems. 

Course Aim

Upon completion of this course, the student would able to understand and apply  the fundamentals of Digital communications and technical concepts of mobile and wireless systems, including system design fundamentals, standards and trends in Digital Communications.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course the student will be able to:

-      Analyze signals in both the time domain and frequency domain through a clear understanding of the relationship between the domains.

-      Analyze random signals in terms of probability distributions, power spectral densities and correlation.

-      Understand the need for modulation in communications.

-      Determine power and bandwidth of analogue modulated signals.

-      Understand methods for modulating and demodulating analogue signals.

-      Understand pulse code modulation techniques for converting an analogue signal to a digital signal. 

-      Understand methods for modulating and demodulating analogue signals.

-      Characterize the performance of digital sources using information theoretic concepts. 

-      Determine the information capacity of digital communication systems

-      Calculate the noise budget of communication systems

-      Analyze the effects of noise in digital modulation systems 

-      Analyze and characterize the performance of forward error correction systems used in digital communication systems.

-      Understand optimum receiver theory and signal space concepts.

-      Perform a system level design of digital communication systems.