Foundations of Advanced Wireless Communication

This module provides an overview of the course content and structure. In this module, you will learn about the different course elements. In this module, you will get acquainted with your instructor and get an opportunity to introduce yourself and interact with your peers.

In this module, you will learn about multi-antenna wireless systems. The module will discuss different antenna configuration setups, such as the single-input multiple-outputs (SIMO), multiple-input single-output (MISO), and the multiple-input multiple-outputs (MIMO) . You will learn how to derive the bit-error rate of a multi-antenna system. This module will also discuss various receive combining techniques.

This module focuses on how received signals are demodulated with and without the channel state information and which kind of receiver performs well under different scenarios. You will also learn about the different channel assumptions, such as fixed channel, no channel information at the transmitter/receiver, slow-fading channel, and fast-fading channel.

This module will focus on ways to increase a cellular network’s overall throughput. The module analyses the spectral efficiency for different configurations of cellular networks, for example, single/multiple-antenna at the base station, single/multiple users in a cell, and two-cell/multiple-cell in a cellular network . You will gain insights into which network configuration best suits maximizing the area throughput. The impact of the increase in antenna/users/cells will be discussed in detail, with spectral efficiency as the metric. The module will consider different channel settings, such as line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight. Also, you will learn how antenna placement affects channel modeling.

This module will act as a bridge between multi-user MIMO and massive MIMO systems. The module will explain when a multi-user MIMO system can be called a massive MIMO system. You will learn about different properties of massive MIMO, for example, channel hardening and favorable propagation. You will learn why channel estimation is an important aspect, mainly when you consider a massive MIMO system. The focus will be on how to calculate an estimate of channels with limited overhead. Further, it will discuss different ways to estimate channels, such as the minimum mean square error (MMSE), least-square (LS), semi-blind, and superimposed channel estimation techniques.

In this module, you will learn the need to shift the operating frequency bands of the upcoming wireless systems towards the mmWave frequency bands. You will also learn the challenges involved in realizing such systems. Subsequently, you will learn to characterize the mmWave channel models, specifically the narrowband and wideband models. Later, you will be exposed to the key design consideration for modeling a mmWave system.