In recent years, we have witnessed significant advances in wireless communications and networks. On the access side, 802.11-based wireless LANs, or WLANs, have been deployed in virtually all university campuses, corporations, airports, and hotels, forming many wireless clouds at the edge of the Internet. Wireless mesh and regional-area networks is on the rise. Through advanced beam-forming antennas and MIMO capabilities, they promise to bridge the connectivity between WLAN clouds and enable ubiquitous and seamless wireless communications in metropolitan areas. Wireless sensor networks have been deployed for various civilian and military applications, including environment monitoring, detection of chemical hazards, border crossing, weather forecasting, etc. High-bandwidth wireless communications using ultra-wide band (UWB) technology is gaining momentum, and will soon revolutionize home networking and bring to light a new generation of consumer electronics. Smart radios with spectrum-adaptive capabilities (aka cognitive radios) are emerging as a new paradigm for radio communications. Office and personal area networks using Bluetooth are becoming commonplace.

The purpose of this seminar course is to expose students to recent advances in wireless networks, focusing on the theoretical underpinnings, protocol design, and architectural concepts. Various topics will be covered through representative papers from top-tier conferences (e.g., MobiCom, MobiHoc, Sigcomm, INFOCOM, etc.), IEEE and ACM journals, magazines, and regulatory documents and standards (including FCC specifications). The class will emphasize discussion and debate, with the goal of strengthening students’ critical and analytical thinking.

Enrollment Requirements

Course Texts

No required text.

Material will consist of assigned research papers, tutorial/survey articles and standards documents (including FCC specifications). In addition, the slides of presentations given by the instructor and students will be made available to the class, and will constitute part of the class material. In each lecture, 1-2 papers will typically be assigned as "required." Additional papers may be provided as "recommended reading."

Schedule

Course Links

Assessment

• Presentations: 1 per student
• Quizzes: 12-15
• Class participation
• Final exam
• Typical grading policy: 30% presentations, 20% final exam, 30% quizzes, 20% class participation

Communication, detection and estimation as statistical inference problems. Optimal detection in the presence of Gaussian noise. Extraction of signals in noise via MAP and MMSE techniques. Performance evaluation including Chernoff and Cramer-Rao bounds.

Enrollment Requirements

Course Texts

H. Vincent Poor, An Introduction to Detection and Estimation, 2nd edition, Springer-Verlag, 1994

This course will cover advanced topics in wireless communications for voice, data, and multimedia. It will also cover optical wireless communications, both indoor and free-space optical communications, and medical wireless communications. The course begins with a brief overview of current wireless systems and standards. It then characterizes the wireless channel, including path loss for different environments, random log-normal shadowing due to signal attenuation, and the flat and frequency-selective properties of multipath fading. Next it examines the fundamental capacity limits of wireless channels and the characteristics of the capacity-achieving transmission strategies. The next focus will be on practical digital modulation techniques and their performance under wireless channel impairments. A significant amount of time will be spent on multiple antenna techniques: MIMO channel model, MIMO channel capacity, and space-time coding. The section on multicarrier modulation provides comprehensive treatment of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). We will further study ultra wideband (UWB) communications, software defined radio and cognitive radio. Next section is related to optical wireless communications (OWC), in particular infrared OWC, visible light communications and free-space optical (FSO) communications. The section on wireless medical communications will cover implanted antennas inside biological tissue, antennas inside a human head, and antennas inside a human body. The course concludes with coding for wireless channels, adaptive modulation, adaptive coding and multiuser detection.

Course Texts

• A. Goldsmith, Wireless Communications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• R.A. Carrasco and M. Johnston, Non-Binary Error Control Coding for Wireless Communication and Data Storage. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2005.
• M. Ghavami, L.B. Michael and R. Kohno, Ultra Wideband Signals and Systems in Communication Engineering. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2007.
• D. Tse, and P. Viswanath, Fundamentals of  Wireless Communication. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• T.M. Duman and A. Ghrayeb, Coding for MIMO Communication Systems. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2007.
• E. Biglieri, R. Calderbank, A. Constantinides, A. Goldsmith, A. Paulraj and H.V. Poor, MIMO Wireless Communications. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Schedule

Definition of a measure of information and study of its properties; introduction to entropy, mutual information, channel capacity, and rate-distortion theory.

Enrollment Requirements

Course Texts

Elements of Information Theory, T.M. Cover and J.A. Thomas, Wiley.

Schedule

Assessment

• Homework: 8-10 assignments.
• Exams: 2 midterm exams, 1 comprehensive final exam
• Typical grading policy: 10% homework, 30% exam 1, 30% exam 2, 30% final exam

This course is a self-contained introduction to quantum information, quantum computation, and quantum error-correction. The course starts with basic principles of quantum mechanics including state vectors, operators, density operators, measurements, and dynamics of a quantum system. The course continues with fundamental principles of quantum computation, quantum gates, quantum algorithms, and quantum teleportation. A significant amount of time has been spent on quantum error correction codes (QECCs), in particular on stabilizer codes, Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) codes, quantum low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, subsystem codes (also known as operator-QECCs), topological codes and entanglement-assisted QECCs. The next topic in the course is devoted to the fault-tolerant QECC and fault-tolerant quantum computing. The course continues with quantum information theory. The next part of the course is spent investigating physical realizations of quantum computers, encoders and decoders; including photonic quantum realization, cavity quantum electrodynamics, and ion traps. The course concludes with quantum key distribution (QKD).

The course should alternate with ECE 638: Wireless Communications.

Enrollment Requirements

Course Texts

I.B. Djordjevic, Quantum Information Processing and Quantum Error Correction. Elsevier/Academic Press, 2012.

Summary

This course offers in-depth exposition on the design and realization of a quantum information processing and quantum error correction. The successful student will be ready for further study in this area, and will be prepared to perform independent research. The student completed the course will be able design the information processing circuits, stabilizer codes, CSS codes, subsystem codes, topological codes and entanglement-assisted quantum error correction codes; and propose corresponding physical implementation. The student completed the course will be proficient in fault-tolerant design as well.

Assessment

Homework will be assigned approximately every two weeks.  

Typical grading policy: 20% homework, 30% project, 15% midterm exam, 35% final exam.

Planar active microwave circuits, diode and transistor characteristics, mixers, amps, oscillators, and frequency multipliers. Students will design circuits with CAD tools, fabricate in clean room, and measure performance in the lab. Graduate-level requirements include extra problems involving more challenging concepts and in-depth knowledge of the material.

Enrollment Requirements

Course Texts

Microwave and RF Design: A System Approach, Michael Steer, SciTech Publishing.

Suggested text: Microwave Transistor Amplifiers 2nd Edition, Guillermo Gonzales, Prentice-Hall, 1997.

Schedule

This course is structured to provide all students with the fundamental concepts and techniques associated with RF/microwave/wireless passive circuit design. Successful completion of this course will allow students to design and evaluate passive microwave circuits, as well as comprehend and analyze more advanced material in the field of microwave engineering. Microwave engineering is growing in importance with each passing year. It has application to the wireless industry and to high density electronic packaging for computer systems with fast clock speeds. Some common applications of passive microwave circuits include communication systems (e.g., satellite-to-ground link), mobile phones and wireless local-area-network, radar, navigation and guidance systems (e.g., GPS), antennas, radio astronomy, electronic warfare, remote sensing, and biomedical devices.

Enrollment Requirements

Course Texts

Microwave Engineering, 3rd Edition, David M. Pozar, John Wiley and Sons, 2005.

Schedule

Assessment

• Homework: 8-10 assignments
• Project
• Exams: 3 midterm exams, 1 final exam
• Typical grading policy: 45% midterms, 25% final exam, 15% homework 15% laboratory/project

Introduction to the fundamentals of radiation, antenna theory and antenna array design. Design considerations for wire, aperture, reflector and printed circuit antennas.

Enrollment Requirements

Course Texts

Antenna Theory and Design, 3rd edition with multimedia CD, Constantine Balanis, Wiley-Interscience.

Schedule

Assessment

• Approximately 2 homework problems per week
• Two 75-minute exams
• One take-home project
• Comprehensive final exam
• Computer assignments for visualization and understanding purposes may be given throughout the course
• Typical grading policy: 10% homework, 40% midterm exams, 25% project, 25% final exam

This course is structured as a sequential, second course that follows ECE 581A. In ECE 581A, the fundamental concepts and analytical techniques associated with engineering electromagnetics were introduced. These concepts and the associated analytical tools were then used to investigate a variety of canonical problems in the rectangular coordinate system. In ECE 581B, these concepts will be extended to the analysis of propagation, scattering, and diffraction problems in the cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems. These problems include metallic and dielectric waveguides, closed and open guiding structures, plane wave scattering from cylinders, wedges, and spheres; line source scattering from cylinders and wedges; and dipole scattering from spheres. Integral equation techniques and the method of moments will also be discussed.

As with ECE 581A, ECE 581B class material will emphasize understanding and analysis tools. The material is a complete exposure at an advanced graduate level. This theoretical study provides the student with the basis to deal with a wide range of practical topics including microwave engineering, millimeter wave engineering, optical engineering, antennas, sensors remote sensing, electromagnetic interference and electromagnetic compatibility. Understanding the fundamentals of electromagnetics is intrinsic to understanding how to analyze and design various types of components, devices, and systems for all of these applications and more.

Course is structured to provide students with the fundamental concepts and analytical techniques associated with engineering electromagnetics (EM). The material is a complete exposure to Maxwell’s equations and their solutions for a variety of problems at an advanced graduate level. This theoretical study provides the student with the basis to deal with a wide range of practical topics including microwave engineering, electronic packaging, millimeter wave engineering, optical engineering, antennas, sensors, remote sensing, electromagnetic interference and electromagnetic compatibility. Understanding the fundamentals of electromagnetics is intrinsic to understanding how to analyze and design various types of components, devices, and systems for all of these applications and more.

Enrollment Requirements

Course Texts

Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics, C.A. Balanis, John Wiley and Sons Inc., New York, 1989.

Assessment

• Homework: 10-13 assignments
• Exams: 2 midterm exams, 1 final exam
• Typical grading policy: 50% midterms, 30% final exam, 20% homework