Unit information: Mobile Communications 3 in 2010/11

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Unit name Mobile Communications 3
Unit code EENG32500
Credit points 10
Level of study H/6
Teaching block(s) Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director Professor. Andrew Nix
Open unit status Not open
Pre-requisites

EENG22000

Co-requisites

None

School/department Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering
Faculty Faculty of Engineering

Description including Unit Aims

The unit aims to cover mobile radio propagation, modulation theory, diversity combining, cellular radio architectures and capacity calculation. The propagation theory concentrates on aspects such as Rayleigh and Rician fading and the impact of random FM and Doppler shifts. These narrowband properties are further developed with the introduction of Level Crossing Rates and Average Fade Duration statistics. Wideband propagation effects such as time delay spread, intersymbol interference and coherence bandwidth are introduced. The unit covers both QPSK and GMSK modulation formats and discusses the impact of amplifier non-linearity. Diversity techniques are studied to improve performance. The European CT2 standard is used as a case study for the application of diversity to a TDMA-TDD system. Areas such as co-channel interference, frequency re-use, cluster size and handover are introduced. The basic cellular radio design equations are developed allowing simple capacity and coverage predictions to be developed for current and future networks. Finally, the basic GSM/DCS1800 network is considered to illustrate how radio base-stations are connected to the public switched network.

Intended Learning Outcomes

After completing the unit the student will be able to:

  • Understand mobile radio propagation theory
  • Develop Matlab models for multipath fading
  • Derive and compute radio link-budgets
  • Understand how the radio channel distorts digital communications
  • Understand how diversity can be used to enhance mobile performance
  • Understand the practical differences between GMSK and QPSK
  • Design cellular networks based on FDMA and TDMA systems
  • Calculate network capacity in terms of subscribers per square kilometre
  • Compute the frequency re-use factor as a function of the co-channel protection ratio

Assessment Information

Name: Terminal Exam

Type: Exam

% of final mark: 100

Description: 2 hour written paper

Reading and References

  • Parsons, J.D., The Mobile Radio Propagation Channel, 2nd Edition, J. Wiley, 2000, ISBN 978-0-471-98857-1 Highly Recommended for part 1.

Proakis, J., Digital Communications, 4th Edition, McGraw-Hill, 2000, ISBN 0071181830.

  • Sklar, B., Digital Communications: Fundamentals and Applications, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall, 2001, ISBN 0130847887.
  • Haykin. S., Communication Systems, 4th Edition, John Wiley, 2000, ISBN 0471178691.
  • Rappaport. T.S., Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice, 2001, ISBN 0160422320.

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