ECE 5870 - Wireless Communications

Fall 2006

Catalog Course Description

ECE 5870 Wireless Communications. Characteristic of the physical channel, fading and multipath, frequency reuse, interference, and system capacity. Equalization, diversity, and channel coding. Laboratory experiments focus on design issues and tradeoffs in wireless communication system. (3 cr) (Fa)

Class Information

Instructor: Randy J. Jost
Office: EL 241B (When I am up on campus - otherwise I am down at the Space Dynamics Laboratory)
Office Hours: See Sign up sheet on my door.

My web page: http://www.engineering.usu.edu/ece/faculty/rjost

My email address:

Please put the following => [ECE 5870] (exactly as shown, with square brackets) into your subject line, it will help me to better manage the large number of emails that I will be receiving this semester. Also, it is an extremely good idea to include your NAME in your emails. I realize that some of you have secret identities to keep the evil supervillains from finding out who you are, but I promise not to tell them, and I really would like to know to whom I am responding when I get an email. Your university-provided email address does not always tell me who you are, and you don't want me to have to remember the email address of everyone in the class, because it will make me cranky. And cranky professors do not give out liberal amounts of partial credit.

Lecture Time and Location: 10:30 - 11:45 T/Th, Room EL 109

Lab Time and Location: 1:30 - 4:15 M/T/W/Th, Room TBD

Prerequisites:
ECE 3870 Electromagnetics I and ECE 5660 Communications I should give you most of the background you need. Having ECE 5850 Antennas I would be very nice, but not required. Familiarity and understanding of basic concepts in signals and systems, electronics, communications and electromagnetics is what you need to bring to the table.

Required Text: Wireless Communications, by Andreas Molisch Wiley-Interscience, 2006, ISBN: 0-470-84888-X.

Required Text:

Image of required course text -
Wireless Communications by Molisch

Wireless Communications, by Andreas Molisch Wiley-Interscience, 2006, ISBN: 0-470-84888-X. An excellent, comprehensive text by a noted expert in the field. Contains almost all of the topics that I want to cover. Note that there is a wealth of supplemental material at the Wiley web site for this book. Use the following link: www.wiley.com/go/molisch.

Recommended Supplements:
While these books are not required, if you plan on doing anything serious in wireless commuications, you should also have a few of the following texts on your book shelf. Note that these are just my opinions, and everyone knows that opinions are like..., well, you know.

Image of recommended text -
Shankar, Introduction to Wireless Systems

"Introduction to Wireless Systems," by P. Mohana Shankar, Wiley, 2002. ISBN 0-471-32167-2. A very good survey text, with more of a communications flavor. Doesn't have quite as much material on the communications channel as I wanted, but I am an antennas and propagation type, so I am biased. This can be remedied by reviewing several other good texts. Some good appendices and a very nice set of references.

Recommended Software: We will be using MATLAB to develop some Wireless Communications modeling tools. One of the smartest things you could do, if you plan on doing extensive work in mathematical modeling and simulation applications or Digital Signal/Image Processing is to get your own copy of the Student edition of MATLAB. Release 14, service pack 3 is the latest version. With this on your computer, you can free yourself from the computer lab.

Another suitable tool for Wireless Communications modeling tools is Mathcad by the company Mathsoft. This program is more interactive than MATLAB, and is thus very well suited to developing what-if design packages.

I use and recommend both packages. The Mathcad worksheets give you a better "view" of what is going on in the development of modeling scenarios, especially while you are in the cut and try design stage of putting an analysis package together. Plus, you can see the intermediate results in a more straightforward fashion. On the other hand, when I know what I want to do and how I want a package to operate, I like the GUI interface possible with MATLAB. I consider these two packages to be complementary and it is worth your time to learn how to use both.

Syllabus: We will be covering the following topic areas: An introduction to wireless systems; a fairly detailed look at the propagation channel and models for it; some key antenna concepts for wireless systems; an introduction to modulation/demodulation concepts; diversity reception techniques; channel coding concepts, and depending on time, some selected topics from parts IV and V of the text.

Grading: Right now, we are going to have a midterm (35%), homework (30%), a semester long software project (35%). The software project will entail the use of either Maple, Mathcad or MATLAB to develop some simulations and/or calculations of parameters useful in the Wireless arena. For more information, go to the Supplemental Material page via the link below, then go to the Software Project page. We may have a hardware project that will take the place of a final exam, but that will depend on the background of the attendees, and I probably won't determine that until the second week of class. If I do have a hardware project, that will probably count for about 25% of the grade and the other percentages will be adjusted accordingly.

Reading & HW Assignments: Reading/Homework assignments for the semester

Supplemental Material: Supplemental material for this class and links to class projects.

Reference Material: Useful Wireless reference information

Wireless Links: Wireless-related links Not Yet Active

Breaking News

Check here for breaking news. You are responsible for checking this spot before each class for updates and corrections to assignments and schedule. I will be keeping announcements up for approximately two weeks or until the update is no longer relevant.

Date	Event
10/17/2006	No Lecture today. There will be one on Thursday. I will be sending out an email also, to give everyone an update. Check the homework page this afternoon for a new assignment, which will you can use to add to your project.
10/20/2006	I've updated the homework page with a new assignment, which will you can use to add to your project. I have also updated the supplemental material page, to state that we will be having a take home midterm on the 3 of Novemeber. My scanner went down again, so you will have to wait a bit longer for the example problems. I will post some homework problems for you shortly.
11/02/2006	I've updated the homework page with a slightly different schedule. I have also updated the supplemental material page, to state that you will have a take home midterm on 7 November, due on November 14.
11/17/2006	I've updated the homework page with Homework #6, Programming Project 4. I have also added anothe handout to the download page that I sent you the link to last night. Go ahead and grab that, as it will come down in a few days. Also, notice that I've established December 11 as the day for your project to be turned in, and updated the schedule below and the software project page to reflect that fact. Note that you can turn in your project early if you want to, otherwise it has to be to me by 4:00 pm on December 11, 2006.
12/10/2006	Exams are in the ECE office - check with Tricia. Since I didn't make it to class on Thursday (Fuel Pump), I wasn't there to answer questions or cheer you on to victory. Thus, if you want to take some extra time to turn in your project, that will be fine by me. I will accept them up to Wednesday afternoon at 4:00 pm on the 13th. If you have already turned your project in, and you want to tweak it a little more, I'll take the updated version, if it is in by the new deadline. I'm starting to do final grading now, but it won't take much time to update your score/grade if you update your project. If you have any questions about the project, feel free to contact me down at SDL, if that is easier to get ahold of me. Note that if you want me to send you your final grades and some additional items, be sure I have a good email address for you that is valid through at least the 20th.

Upcoming key dates this semester.

Date	Event
9/04/2006	No Classes (Labor Day)
9/29/2006	SW Project Inital Design Due
10/09/2006	SW Project Detailed Design Due
10/20/2006	No Classes (Fall Break)
11/14/2006	Take home Midterm due
11/22-24/2006	No Classes (Thanksgiving Break)
12/08/2006	Last Day of Classes
12/13/2006	SW Project Due, received by me, NLT 4:00 pm. NOTE updated date
12/14/2006	Final Exam Period; 9:30 - 11:20 a.m.

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Last Updated: 12/10/2006