ECE 461 - Spring 2020

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Course description: Reliable communication of one bit of information over three types of channels: additive Gaussian noise, wireline, and wireless. Emphasis on the impact of bandwidth and power on the data rate and reliability, using discrete-time models. Technological examples used as case studies.

Lectures: TR, 9.30am-10.50am, via Zoom. Lecture recordings are here.

Instructor: Prof. Juan Alvarez, alvarez@, 3046 Electrical & Computer Eng Bldg (ECEB), 300-5452.

Teaching Assistant: Grant Greenberg, gcgreen2@

Lecture Attendance Policy: We invite relevant questions and comments during lectures. Address your questions and comments to the entire class; avoid disruptive behavior such as talking to neighbors, unless the instructor invites you to form discussion groups. Kindly turn off or mute cell phones, laptop computers, and other electronic devices during lectures.

Course notes:

Prerequisite: The basic prerequisites are a probability course (such as ECE 313 or STAT 410) and some basic signal processing background (such as ECE 210).


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Course Outline

Communication Systems are the basic workhorses behind the information age. Examples include high speed communication networks, wireless and wireline telephone systems, high speed modems, etc. The basic currency of information is digital: bits . Broadly speaking, this course is centered around a single theme: reliably communicate bits over an unreliable physical medium. The emphasis is on how to transfer this currency between a transmitter-receiver pair. The transfer involves a physical medium, whose input-output characteristics are not deterministically known. The curriculum has three broad parts:

These three parts are discussed in the course in the context of three specific physical media:



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Office hours

Office hours (starting March 25 25, through May 4):





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Homework

HW # 7

due: Tuesday, May 5 @ 10.50am

solution

HW # 6

Practice example on baseband representation of passband signals (not to be turned in)

due: Tuesday, April 21 @ 10.50am

solution

solution to practice example on baseband representation of passband signals

HW # 5

due: Tuesday, April 7 @ 10.50am

solution

HW # 4 - Updated

due: Tuesday, March 10 @ 10.50am

solution

HW # 3

due: Tuesday, February 25 @ 10.50am

solution

HW # 2

due: Tuesday, February 11 @ 10.50am

solution

HW # 1

due: Tuesday, January 28 @ 10.50am

solution


Written homework assignments will be posted above on Tuesdays (starting on 1/28) and will be due by 10.50am on Tuesdays on the due date by handing it to the instructor or by dropping it in box # 48 at the northwest corner of the 3rd floor next to the service elevator.

Late homework will receive no credit.

Your lowest homework grade will be dropped to account for possible sickness, travel or emergencies.


Homework format: Your homework assignment should be readable, clearly written. In the case it isn't, students will be penalized with reduction of points or zero credits. The header should be in the following format: left side up corner: course number, section, and semester; right side up corner: student name and netID; and in the middle HW # 1, #2, etc. See the following picture as an example:



Regrades: If you want to request a regrade of your homework, you must do so within a week of it being initially handed back during lecture (if you pick it up late you do not get an extension). To request a regrade, on a separate piece of paper, write why you think you should get more credit. Staple this paper to your homework and then hand it to the instructor.





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Exams

Exams scheduled for these dates:

All exams will be closed book, closed notes, but you may bring one sided 8 1/2 ′′ by 11 ′′ sheet of notes. Calculators, laptop computers, cell phones, tables of integrals, etc. are neither necessary nor permitted.

There are no scheduled make-up exams. If you have an unavoidable medical or personal emergency, an exception might be granted. To be eligible for a make-up exam, you must notify the instructor (not the TA) before the scheduled starting time of the exam, and you must fully document your absence.

Students with documented disabilities must notify the lecture instructor at least two weeks before Exam 1.


Regrades: If when you receive your graded exam, and after looking at the posted solutions, you feel there was an inaccuracy in the grading of your exam, fill out this exam regrade request form and staple it to your exam BUT do not write on or alter in any way your original exam paper. Turn in such regrade requests to your instructor by the end of the second lecture after the graded exam is handed back (if you pick it up late you do not get an extension).

Old exams

Exam 1

Spring 2019

Spring 2016

Spring 2015

Spring 2014

Spring 2019 solution

Spring 2016 solution

Spring 2015 solution

Exam 2

Spring 2019

Spring 2017

Spring 2016

Spring 2015

Spring 2014

Spring 2019 solution

Spring 2017

Spring 2016 solution

Spring 2015 solution

Spring 2014 solution

Solutions to additional problems

Final

Spring 2019

Spring 2017

Spring 2016

Spring 2015

Spring 2014

Spring 2019 solution

Spring 2017 solution

Spring 2016 solution

Spring 2015 solution

Spring 2014 solution

Solutions to additional problems

Solutions to more additional problems






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Grading policy

It is the student's responsibility to check that the correct grades are entered in COMPASS2g. There will be no changes after a week past the lecture date when the corresponding hw, exam or quiz is returned (missing that lecture or not picking up the document does not extend the timeframe).

The final grade will be calculated as follows:






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Slides and additional resources per "Lecture" from the course notes.

We will follow the Lecture Notes on Digital Communication, Viswanath: pdf. Hardcopy available from the ECE Copy Room.

Lecture in notes Learning Objectives Supplements
Introduction
slides
   
Lecture 1: Discrete Nature of Information
slides
Review of Probability
slides - part 1
slides - part 2
 
Lecture 2: Statistical Channel Model
slides
Lecture 3: Histogram to Optimum Receiver
slides
Lecture 4: Sequential and Block Communication
slides
  • matlab code: MAP decoding over additive white Laplacian noise.
Lecture 5: Energy-Efficient Communication
slides
Lecture 6: Rate-Efficient Reliable Communication
slides
slides - part 2
Lecture 7: Reliable Communication with Erasures
slides
  • Fountain codes, describes the application of erasure codes for packet communication over the internet.
Lecture 8: Capacity of the AWGN Channel
slides
  • diagram: sphere packing argument
  • Hypersphere, Weisstein, strangely the hypersurface area of hyperspheres reaches its maximum at 7 dimensions.
  • Vesica Piscis, the fish bladder shape that is the intersection of two circles.
Review of Fourier Analysis
slides (updated)
Lecture 9: Pulse Shaping and Sampling
slides
Lecture 10: Capacity of the Continuous-Time AWGN Channel
slides
Lecture 11: Modeling the Wireline Channel: Intersymbol Interference
slides
Lecture 12:  Intersymbol Interference Management: Low SNR Regime
slides
Lecture 13: Intersymbol Interference Management: High SNR Regime
slides
 
Lecture 14:  Interference Management at all SNRs
slides
 
Other low and high SNR schemes
slides
   
Lecture 15: Transmitter-Centric ISI Management: Precoding
slides
Lecture 16:  Transmitter-Centric ISI Harnessing: OFDM
slides
Lecture 17:  OFDM and Capacity of the Wireline Channel
slides
example from 4/2
Lecture 18: Passband Wireless Communication
slides
Lecture 19: The Discrete Time Complex Baseband Wireless Channel
slides - updated
Lecture 20: Sequential Communication over a Slow Fading Wireless Channel
slides
Lecture 21: Typical Error Event in a Slow Fading Wireless Channel
slides
Lecture 22: Time diversity
slides
Lecture 23:Frequency diversity
slides - part 1
slides - part 2
Lecture 24:Antenna diversity
slides - part 1
slides - part 2



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