UNIK4230 – Mobile communications
Schedule, syllabus and examination date
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 (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 (Ph.D studies).
Learning outcome
- Brief history of mobile communication and developments towards modern systems
- Propagation characteristics of wireless channels- attenuation, fading, how to combat fading
- GSM air interface and network architecture with functionalities of different elements
- Frequency reuse, interference, traffic capacity and coverage area estimation in cellular network
- Multiple access technologies for resource sharing with TDMA, FDMA, CDMA , OFDMA
- Mobile Broadband technologies with High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-Advanced and Self Organizing Network (SON)
- Small Cells and Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) with regards to future traffic growth challenges in wireless networks
Admission
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.
If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.
Prerequisites
Recommended previous knowledge
This subject builds to a certain degree on the subjects given in the bachelor study within Electronics and computer science 1st term.
Teaching
Two hours lecturing, one hour problem session per week.
Examination
Probably oral exam, but in the case of large number of student possibly written exam.
Explanations and appeals
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.