Spring term 2006

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Course status
This course is a compulsory course in the option Radio Communication Systems of the Master’s major subject Radio Communications on the degree program of Communications Engineering and in the option Radio Communication Systems of the Master’s major subject Communications Applications in the degree program of Electronics and Electrical Engineering. Together with the course S-72.3210 Channel Modelling for Radio Communication Systems it will replace the old courses S-72.135 Fixed Radio Networks and S-72.232 Radio Communication Systems. It is also a compulsory course in the curriculum of the Radio Communications option in the International Master’s Program in Communications Engineering.

Course motivation and targets
Radio has played an important role in telecommunications since the first trials about 110 years ago. In many applications radio is due to easy construction a very competitive transmission technology compared to wired solutions. For mobile communications radio is the only practical technology. For point to area communications like audio and video broadcasting the main technology has been and still is radio. Planning radio systems is because of the time-variant nature of the radio propagation channel sometimes a rather complex task. The starting point is the planning of the physical transmission link using a radio system, which includes base-band and RF parts of the radio transceivers, antennas and feeders, and the radio path. Also the radio network planning to obtain good spectrum efficiency in a interference environment is an important topic.
After the course the student will have knowledge about

• typical radio communication systems and environments,
• radio noise and equipment impairments,
• radio link budget and system planning.
  

The main goal is to provide information for radio link budget calculations in radio link and network planning, so that the student is able to choose system solutions, which will guarantee that the radio communication system will fulfil given specifications.

The radio link budget is a simple instrument for this purpose, but the determination of the gains and losses in the different terms of the budget will require knowledge of the performance of the different transmission methods. The application of it to system planning requires understanding of the interactions between the used transmission methods and algorithms.


Prerequisites
The courses S-72.420/S-72.1140 Transmission Methods in Telecommunication Systems (4 credits(ov)/5 ECTS-credits(op)), S-72.3210 Channel Modelling for Radio Communication Systems (3 credits (op)), and S-72.3230 Radio Transmission and Network Access (3 credits (op)) or equivalent courses are assumed to be acquired before this course.

Teachers
The course is lectured by professor Sven-Gustav Häggman, who is the responsible teacher of this course. The exercises are also held by him.
Seppo Saastamoinen is the web-master.
Information about the course will be found on the web-address www.comlab.hut.fi/studies/3220/.

Lectures and exercises
These are held weekly at the following times in Period III, spring term 2006:

• Tuesdays 14 – 16, 
• Wednesdays 14 – 16,
• Thursdays 14 – 16.
  

The lecture plan can be found here and on the information board on floor E3.

In the exercises demonstrative problems and solving methods are presented. In each exercise one homework is given, which should be returned for checking and grading. The scores will have an impact on the final course grade.

Requirements
The course is carried out by an exam. The exam requirements consist of the material distributed to the students. There will be two exams, the first exam is on March 7, 2006, and the second exam will be on May 16, 2006.
The exam consists of two parts. The first part is done with closed books, and it comprises two tasks where general principles, definitions etc. are asked for. After the answers have been given to the exam supervisor, the three problem-oriented tasks of the second part are given to the student. This is a open-book part, where the use of arbitrary source material is allowed except for team work between the students or other persons. Use of scientific calculators is allowed and recommended.

Final grade:

The final course grade is calculated from the formula:

                    Final grade =  Texam + 0.2Texercises
                   
The student must pass the exam.

Information about the following exams will be shown on the Departments web-pages. Calculators are allowed and their use is highly recommendable. Otherwise the general exam rules in TKK are followed.