Introduction to Wireless Technologies
- A Brief History of Wireless Communications
- The Continuing Evolution of Wireless Technologies
- Overview of Modern Wireless Technologies
Radio Wave Characteristics
- The Electro-magnetic Spectrum
- Propagation Modes of Radio Waves
- Radio Spectrum: Licensed and License Exempt
Calculator Exercise: Wavelength/frequency conversion
Fundamental Radio Concepts
- Basics of Information Transfer for Radio
- Working with Decibels: Gains, Losses, Power Levels
- Basic Radio Components
- Wireless Impairments: Internal Noise and Distortion
Calculator Exercises:
- Using decibels: Powers levels, gains and adding ratios
- Amplifier back-off vs. efficiency
- Determining the thermal noise seen by an antenna
- Receiver noise contribution; Noise Figure
Digital Modulation and Error Correction Techniques
- Analog and Digital Modulation
- Getting More Bits per Baud
- Error Correction Techniques
Calculator Exercises:
- Determining bit rate of a channel
- Determining theoretical symbol error rate
Physical Layers and Multiple Access Techniques
- Basic Access Techniques
- OFDM and OFDMA
- Spread Spectrum and CDMA
Spreadsheet Simulations:
- OFDM and Orthogonality
- CDMA and Processing Gain
Basics of Antennas and Antenna Systems
- E-M Field Radiation: Intentional and Unintentional
- Basic Antenna Types and Uses
- Basic Antenna Characteristics
- Antenna Field Regions
- Care and Feeding of Antennas
- Antenna Diversity Techniques
- Advanced Antenna Systems
Exercises and Simulations:
- Determining aperture antenna gain
- Antenna pattern evaluation: Beam-width and front-to-back ratio
- Determining antenna reactive near field
- Determining antenna radiative near field
- Converting between VSWR and reflection coefficient
- Comparing % reflected power and return loss measurements
- Phase combining simulation
Link Budget Analysis Techniques
- Noise and Noise Sources
- Link Budget Considerations
- Budgeting the Radio Link
- Determining System Reliability
Exercises:
- Determining System Gain and MAPL
- Performing simple RF power budget
- Converting gain and NFdb to linear ratios
- Performing Cascade analysis of a terrestrial receive system
- Converting NFdb to Noise Temperature
- Performing Cascade analysis of a satellite receive system
- Performing LOS link budget using manuf. equip. specifications
- Determine LOS and NLOS margin based on service objectives
Line-of-Sight Radio Propagation
- Defining Line-of-Sight
- Line-of-Sight Path Loss Analysis
Exercises:
- Determining LOS radio horizon
- Determining Fresnel zone clearance
- Performing a Free-space path loss analysis
- Determining link reliability based on rain fade margin
The Non-Line-of-Sight Propagation Environment
- Non-Line-of-Sight Propagation Mechanisms
- Impairments due to Time Dispersal
- Modeling Propagation Loss in a NLOS Environment
Exercises:
- Estimating diffraction gain for obstacle in radio path
- Determining the coherence bandwidth of a given environment
- Estimating the RMS Delay Spread of an open area
- Determining the coherence time for a given Doppler spread
- Estimating NLOS path loss using the Log Distance formula
- Compare expected loss for several models in a given environment