Undergraduate Course: Digital Communications (ELEE10006)
Course Outline
| School | School of Engineering |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | The aim of this course is to provide students with a thorough understanding of how information theory relates to the design of digital communications systems and to provide the knowledge and skills to perform design calculations on these systems. Students will use standard mathematical methods to model and analyse digital communication systems and predict performance metrics such as received SNR and expected bit error ratio. |
| Course description |
The Digital Communication course covers the following seven topics:
1. Background Review: The background review briefly covers probability theory, Fourier transform analysis, and linear time invariant systems.
2. Analogue-to-Digital Conversion: This topic covers how to apply sampling theorem and analyse quantisation noise of an analogue to digital convertor.
3. Information Theory: This topic covers how to calculate the limits of a digital communication system defined by information theory, for example, the capacity of a communication channel.
4. Error Control Codes: This topic covers how to perform encoding and decoding for different channel coding techniques such as block and convolutional coding.
5. Optimal Signalling and Detection: This topic covers how to optimally apply decision theory for optimal detection of signals and how to avoid inter symbol interference in transmitted signal.
6. Modulation and Link Budget: This topic covers the comparison among different modulation schemes in terms of power and spectral efficiencies and how to perform link budget analysis including receiver noise performance and free space link path loss.
7. Mobile Wireless Communication: This topic covers the basic concepts of mobile wireless communication networks, such as frequency reuse, fading, and multiuser techniques such as TDMA, CDMA.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Students should be familiar with the sampling theorem, be able to analyse baseband communication systems in the absence of noise, discuss the concepts of noise, power spectral densities, and probability, and recall basic error correction schemes, including parity check bits, and simple block codes. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 11,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 10,
Summative Assessment Hours 3,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
74 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
100 %,
Coursework
0 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
100% CW |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| Exam Information |
| Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Minutes |
|
| Main Exam Diet S1 (December) | Digital Communications 4 | 120 | |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Calculate the limits of a digital communication system defined by information theory and analyse the trade-off between spectral efficiency and power efficiency when considering different modulation schemes
- Apply the sampling theorem and analyse quantisation noise of an analogue-to-digital converter
- Design basic source coding techniques and perform encoding and decoding for block and convolutional coding techniques
- Perform link budget analysis and bit error rate calculations,considering receiver noise performance and free-space path loss for terrestrial and satellite applications;
- Explain the basic concepts of mobile wireless communication networks, such as frequency reuse, fading, and multi-user techniques
|
Reading List
| The course textbook is "Digital Communications" by I A Glover and P M Grant, 3rd edition, published by Pearson Education, ISBN 978-0-273-71830-7. Other Textbooks recommended are Communication Systems by Simon Haykin (4th Edition) and Digital Communications by John G, Proakis and Masoud Salehi (5th Edition). |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Majid Safari
Tel: (0131 6)51 3569
Email: Majid.Safari@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Ilaria Monfroni
Tel:
Email: imonfron@ed.ac.uk |
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