Goals: What does Engineering Sciences
E-129
endeavor to teach?
ENSC
E-129 aims to present a relatively self-contained introduction to
the concepts and technologies utilized in telecommunication systems of
current
importance. In practical terms this means that we endeavor to
teach:
• SOME
RELEVANT PHYSICS
Why? To
critically understand
the potentialities and limitations of various modes of communication technology
we need to establish a basic
framework of essential physical concepts such as:
- The
nature of sound propagation
- The
nature of light propagation
- Electricity
flowing on/through wires
- Electrical
generation of magnetism and vice versa
- Mechanisms
of optical and magnetic storage
- Electromagnetism:
Electricity flowing through space
- The
electromagnetic radiation spectrum
• SOME
RELEVANT MATHEMATICS
Why? To
quantify the performance of a
communication system and to comprehend how it operates we need to
understand how information is measured and represented.
- Statistical
measures of information
- Fourier
representation of auditory information
- Various
possible representations of visual information
• SOME SIGNAL
PROCESSING
Why? In
communication systems the
characteristics of information bearing signals are repeatedly
transformed or processed.
Understanding the necessity for these signal transformation operations
is at the very core of understanding communication processes.
- Precomputer
era, analog signal processing -- viz., modulation, filter and
demodulation
- Digital
signal processing: an aspect of computing
• SOME
RELEVANT PSYCHOPHYSICS
Why? A
performance measure of many
communication systems is an assessment of how well the system conveys
human sensory information.
Thus, we turn to psychophysics for guidance in assessing:
- Factors
in auditory perception
- Factors
in visual perception
• SOME
ELEMENTS OF SYSTEM DESIGN/ANALYSIS
- Economic
imperative of resource sharing
- Architectures
and organization of complex systems
•
CHARACTERISTICS OF REAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS
- Precomputer
era (usually analog) communication systems - e.g., switched
circuit telephone networks and broadcast radio/TV
- Mobile
(analog and digital) communication systems
- Computer
or data (digital) communication systems
-
-
This page was
prepared and is maintained by R. Victor Jones
Comments to:
jones@deas.harvard.edu.
Last updated
November 11, 2003
