This module can only be taken as part of the Expeditionary Warfare Systems Engineering and Technology MSc (USA).

To provide the students with an understanding of the principal information transmission concepts and techniques, and how modern military and commercial communications systems utilise these principal techniques.


At a glance

  • Dates
    • Please enquire for course dates
  • Duration5 days
  • LocationNSWC Crane, Indiana, USA

Course structure

Lectures, tutorials, computer based practical’s; video practical

What you will learn

On successful completion of this module a student should be able to:

- Identify and analyse the main functions of each of the component blocks in a communications system model, deriving suitable values for each of the system parameters
- Evaluate the principles, implementation and theoretical background of the principal modulation schemes employed in communication systems
- Synthesise the system models and  critically analyse the performance of modern communication systems


Core content

• Introduction: Transmitter and receiver communications system model
• Analogue modulation: Amplitude and Frequency modulation
• Digital modulation: ASK, FSK, PSK, DPSK, MSK, QAM
• Communications channel: Multipath effects, fading and diversity.
• Link budget analysis
• Multiplexing and multiple access: FDM, TDM, CDM, statistical multiplexing, FDMA, TDMA and CDMA. 
• Error correction codes: Block, convolutional and trellis coding. 
• Wideband multicarrier techniques: Spread spectrum techniques, OFDM. .
• HF and  Scatter-based systems. 
• Software Defined Radio 
• Satellite communications

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