Telecommunications traces its roots to ancient civilizations using visual signals. The advent of the telegraph in the 19th century marked a transformative milestone, paving the way for inventions like the telephone and the use of radio waves. Over time, continuous innovations, including fibre optics and the internet, have shaped telecommunications into a vital component of global connectivity.
This course provides students with a foundational understanding of principles and techniques in transmitting and receiving information. Beginning with fundamental concepts such as signals, spectrum analysis by Fourier series and transform, and phasor representation, the course explores analogue communication, encompassing amplitude modulation (AM), frequency modulation (FM), and phase modulation (PM). Related topics to AM include envelopes, sidebands (DSB-SC, SSB, VSB), detection and quadrature multiplexing. Students delve into the intricacies of analogue signal transmission, receivers, noise sources and modelling. They learn to analyze and design systems for conveying information effectively using continuous signals.
Shifting the focus to digital communications, the course covers topics such as analogue to digital conversion by sampling, quantisation, encoding, baseband pulse modulation (PAM, PWM, PPM, PCM, DM), and line coding. This is followed by digital passband modulation techniques (Binary and M-ary signalling ASK, PSK, FSK), multiplexing techniques (frequency/time division multiplexing (FDM/TDM), noise in digital systems, and intersymbol interferences. Furthermore, the fundamentals of channel coding and error detection and correction are covered and eventually, an entire communications system built using the techniques and schemes learnt throughout this course is reviewed through examples.
Through hands-on experiments in the laboratory, students gain proficiency in both analogue and digital communication systems, preparing them for taking more advanced courses such as TELE4651 - Wireless Communication Technologies, TELE4652 - Mobile and Satellite Communication Systems, and TELE4653 - Digital Modulation and Coding, to deepen their understanding and take careers in telecommunications, networking, and related fields.
