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 for each course.

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.