This course covers the principles associated with data transmission, with a special emphasis on aspects concerning the physical layer and the medium-access control layer.

You'll learn about the foundations and the applications of the various algorithms, techniques and protocols.

The course is made up of the following areas.

Introduction

• Historical perspective
• Elements of a digital transmission system 

Principles of channel coding

• Fundamental limits in data transmission (preliminaries, channel coding theorem, channel capacity as a fundamental information transmission limit)
• Channel coding schemes (FEC vs. ARQ, block codes, convolutional codes, Viterbi algorithm, turbo codes, LDPC codes) 

Principles of source coding

• Fundamental limits in data compression (preliminaries, source coding theorem, entropy as a fundamental information compression limit)
• Lossless source coding schemes (Huffman codes, Shannon-Fano-Elias codes, arithmetic codes, Lempel-Ziv codes)
• Lossy source coding schemes (e.g. JPEG, MPEG) 

Baseband digital transmission

• Digital transmission: schemes, their power density spectrum and bandwidth
• Digital reception: the matched filter demodulator, the correlator demodulator, optimal detectors, and BER calculations 

Passband digital transmission

• Digital modulation: schemes, their power density spectrum and their bandwidth
• Digital demodulation: coherent receivers, differentially coherent receivers, non-coherent receivers, and BER calculations 
• Communication through wireless channels 

• Wireless channel models
• Diversity techniques

Multiple-antenna systems (spatial multiplexing and space-time coding)

• OFDM technology
• Spread-spectrum and CDMA technology 
• Other advanced topics

Network coding and applications

• Fountain coding and applications: Luby transform codes, raptor codes, online codes
• Wireless physical-layer security

Dates, assessment and certificates

Classes will be held from 2pm to 6pm on Fridays, for 8 weeks.

Teaching will take place in person with some materials available online. 

If you complete the course but not the exam, you'll receive a certificate of attendance.

The sessions will be held at UCL Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Roberts Building, Torrington Place, London, WC1E 7JE, United Kingdom. 

Cost: £1,500