Digital Communications

This course supports the following program-level objectives:

• Understand technologies relevant to multiple application areas in electrical engineering
• Apply acquired knowledge to the design and implementation of engineering systems
• Build foundations applicable to hardware, software, control, CAD/CAM, instrumentation, intelligent systems, multimedia, and digital communications

• Digital vs. analog communications; system block diagrams
• Noise models and probabilistic analysis
• Optimal receivers and signal space concepts
• Nyquist signaling and ISI mitigation
• Digital modulation formats and performance analysis
• Noncoherent detection techniques
• Spectral efficiency and Shannon capacity
• Channel equalization and multicarrier systems
• Forward error correction and trellis-coded modulation

Image adapted from Digital Communications: Fundamentals and Applications (B. Sklar, Prentice-Hall, 1988), ISBN 0132119390.

This course introduces the foundations of digital communications, from probabilistic noise models and optimal receiver design to modulation, coding, and equalization techniques used in modern communication systems.

• Random signals and random processes; mathematical models of noise (AWGN)
• Receiver design criteria: MAP, ML, and maximum-SNR
• Signal-space representation; matched filter and correlator receivers
• Nyquist pulses, intersymbol interference (ISI), and eye diagrams
• Modulation formats: MFSK, MPSK, and QAM; coherent and noncoherent detection
• Spectral efficiency and channel capacity (Shannon limits)
• Error-control coding and trellis-coded modulation
• Channel equalization: zero-forcing and MMSE

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• Apply analysis and synthesis methods in communication-system design
• Select appropriate modulation formats for a given communication link
• Select suitable digital signal processing techniques
• Evaluate and compare communication-system performance

Leslie Rusch