You are browsing the curriculum and teaching schedule of an upcoming academic year (2026–2027).

Course unit, curriculum year 2026–2027

COMM.SYS.200

Basic Course on Wireless Communications, 5 cr

Tampere University

Description
Completion options

Teaching periods

Course code

COMM.SYS.200

Language of instruction

English, Finnish

Academic years

2024–2025, 2025–2026, 2026–2027

Level of study

Intermediate studies

Grading scale

General scale, 0-5

Persons responsible

Responsible teacher:

Mikko Valkama

Responsible teacher:

Jukka Talvitie, Lecturer for the Finnish implementation

Responsible teacher:

Simona Lohan starting from 16.12.2019, Lecturer for the English implementation

Responsible organisation

Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences 100 %

Coordinating organisation

Electrical Engineering Studies 100 %

Core content

BASIC ELEMENTS OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS
- Basics of antennas;
- Multiplexing and modulation methods;
- Basic ideas of spread-spectrum and multicarrier techniques;
- Multiple access techniques;
- Medium access (MAC) protocols, WLAN MAC.
PROPERTIES AND MODELING OF THE RADIO CHANNEL:
- Path loss models;
- Large-scale fading;
- Small-scale fading.
CELLULAR NETWORK CONCEPT:
- Elements, structure and functionalities of a mobile radio network;
- Basic radio network planning principles.
PRINCIPLES OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS:
- GSM, UMTS/HSPA, LTE, 5G, beyond 5G
- WLAN/WiFi,
- IoT, M2M
- Broadcast networks;
- Satellite communications;
- Positioning systems (cellular network based, GPS, Galileo).
RADIO RESOURCE MANAGEMENT BASICS:
- Power control;
- Handover (cell/sector, frequency, system);
- Packet scheduling;
- Access control mechanisms.
FUTURE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS
- 5G concept
- IoT concep
BASICS OF WIRELESS POSITIONING
- GNSS basics
- cellular positioning basics
- Wifi positioning basics

Complementary knowledge

History of wireless communications.
Statistical modelling of fading.
Other wireless systems (RF-ID, Bluetooth,...)

Learning outcomes

Prerequisites

Recommended prerequisites

Further information

Learning material

Equivalences

Studies that include this course

Completion option 1

Completing the course requires a passed exam, however the course can also be completed with grade 1 by participating in required number of teaching events (lectures, exercises, etc.).

All parts of the completion option are compulsory.