TEK4120 – Mobile Communications
Course description
Course content
Mobile communications has achieved ever-greater popularity in recent years, and is quickly becoming an important part of our everyday life. This subject is aimed towards giving an overview of the most important principles that are making the development within mobile communications possible.
The subject provides an overview of the history of mobile communications and the development towards the systems of today. Furthermore, the main principles of cellular communications systems are described. System architectures are treated in general, and examples from important systems such as GSM and UMTS are discussed. Furthermore, the way radio wave propagation in a mobile radio channel is affecting and limiting the performance of digital communications systems is discussed. Methods to improve performance and combat the adverse effect of the radio channel are also discussed. Different techniques for resource sharing in mobile communications such as FDMA, TDMA, CDMA and methods for calculating system capacity are described. Finally a roadmap for future development is given, describing the most important technology trends with LTE, Self Organizing Network (SON) and Small cells.
This subject, along with other subjects within the study area, will provide the foundation for further work within the area of modern wireless communication systems, within Norwegian telecom companies or for further research or Ph.D studies.
Learning outcome
After completing the course, you will
- have knowledge of a brief history of mobile communication and developments towards modern systems
- know the propagation characteristics of wireless channels - attenuation, fading, how to combat fading
- be able to describe the GSM air interface and network architecture with functionalities of different elements
- know the frequency reuse, interference, traffic capacity and coverage area estimation in the cellular network
- know multiple access technologies for resource sharing with TDMA, FDMA, CDMA , OFDMA
- know Mobile Broadband technologies with High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-Advanced and Self Organizing Network (SON)
- be able to describe Small Cells and Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) with regards to future traffic growth challenges in wireless networks
Admission to the course
Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for?in Studentweb.
Nordic citizens and applicants residing in the Nordic countries may apply to take this course as a single course student.
If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures for international applicants.
Recommended previous knowledge
This course builds on basic knowledge of informatics and mathematics.
Overlapping courses
- 10 credits overlap with UNIK4230 – Mobile communications (continued).
Teaching
3 hours of teaching per week throughout the semester, divided into 2?hours of lectures and 1?hour of problem sessions.
The course has mandatory assignments that must be?approved in order to take the final exam.
The course lectures is given at Department of Technology systems in Kjeller Research Park. See the schedule for the student bus from Campus Blindern.
Examination
- A final oral exam counts 100% towards the final grade.
- In the case of many students, the exam may be?written instead.
- The course has mandatory assignments that must be delivered and approved in order to take the final exam.
It will also be counted as one of the three attempts to sit the exam for this course, if you sit the exam for the following course:
Examination support material
No examination support material is allowed.
Language of examination
Courses taught in English will offer the exam paper in English. You may write your examination paper in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or English.
Grading scale
Grades are awarded on a scale from A to F, where A is the best grade and F?is a fail. Read more about the grading system.
Resit an examination
Students who can document a valid reason for absence from the regular examination are offered a postponed examination at the beginning of the next semester.
Re-scheduled examinations are not offered to students who withdraw during, or did not pass the original examination.
More about examinations at UiO
- Use of sources and citations
- Special exam arrangements due to individual needs
- Withdrawal from an exam
- Illness at exams / postponed exams
- Explanation of grades and appeals
- Resitting an exam
- Cheating/attempted cheating
You will find further guides and resources at the web page on examinations at UiO.