MSc Communications and Signal Processing

Principles of optical propagations in different media: Optical power flow, reflection and refraction, phase and group velocity, polarization of light.

Optical Fibres: different types of fibres, single mode and multi-mode fibres, Ray propagation in fibres, attenuation and signal dispersion in fibres.

Lasers & Photodetectors:   principles of laser oscillations, semiconductor laser diodes and their properties, common types of photodetectors and their principles of operations, photodetector performance characteristics.

Optical Amplifiers:  Basic applications and types of optical amplifiers, semiconductor optical amplifiers, Erbium-doped fibre amplifiers, Raman amplifiers.

Sustainability of Optical communications networks: Data traffic growth of internet, Energy consumption in modulation, transmission, demodulation. Schemes to mitigate energy growth, longer wavelength, temperature stable lasers.

Optical Modulation and Demodulation: Direct and external optical modulators, optical realisation of modulation schemes, direct detection receivers, coherent optical receivers, types of optical noise, high level coherent and differentially coherent optical modulation schemes.

Optical transmission systems design consideration: long-haul and short-reach optical communication systems, impacts of ASE, Noise and sensitivity performance. Error rates, spectral efficiency and performance analysis. Free space optical transmission systems.

Optical Filters and Multiplexing: Common types of optical filters and their principles of operations, Polarization-division multiplexing, wavelength-division multiplexing and optical OFDM.

Passive Optical Networking:   Optical add/drop multiplexing, PONs, EPONs and GPON architectures and standards

Applications of Digital signal processing to the design of high speed optical communication systems: IF estimation and compensation, phase estimation and compensation, polarization-mode equalization, chromatic dispersions equalization.

The course unit aims to:

• Provide a basic understanding of the principles and operation of modern optical communication systems and networks. 
• Appreciate the essence of modern optical fibres transmission techniques for satisfying the demands of high capacity communication systems and networks. 
• Appreciate the role of digital signal processing techniques for compensating transmission impairments in optical communication systems.

On successful completion of the course, a student will be able to:

ILO 1: Compare various optical structures for wavelength division multiplexing and identify their strengths and weaknesses.

ILO 2: Quantify the implications of the exponential growth in internet traffic carried by optical communication systems.

ILO 3: Discriminate various types of optical distortions and noise; Appraise the applications of DSP algorithms for the compensation of their effects.

ILO 4: Design and Analyse different types of optical transmission systems and networks; Discuss specifics of existing and future PON standards.

ILO 5: Explain the basic and advanced theories of optical devices, amplifiers, structures and fibres in modern optical communication systems.

ILO 6: Experimentally analyse system-level performance of an optical fibre transmission systems.

ILO 7: Compare the different types of optical modulations and demodulations and evaluate their performance.

Lectures: 30 hours

Tutorials/problems classes: 6 hours

Laboratories: 6 hours

Feedback on the report is given 14 days after report submission.

• Fiber optic communications: fundamentals and applications by Kumar, Shiva. Wiley, 2014.
• Introduction to fiber-optic communications by Hui, Rongqing.  Academic Press, 2019.
• Digital optical communications by Binh, Le Nguyen. CRC, 2009. 
• Optical fiber communications: principles and practice by Senior, John M. Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 2009. 
• Optical fiber communications by Keiser, Gerd, author. McGraw-Hill, 2014.
• Lightwave technology : telecommunication systems by Agrawal, G. P. (Govind P.). Wiley-Interscience, 2005.
• Essentials of modern optical fiber communication by Noé, Reinhold. Springer, 2016.
• Lightwave communications by paper and Blahut.
• Theory and design of terabit optical fiber transmission systems by Bottacchi, Stefano. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
• The Emerging WDM EPON by Radivojević, Mirjana. Springer International Publishing, 2017. 
• Optical WDM Networks by Mukherjee, Biswanath. Springer US, 2006. 
• Optical WDM networks: from static to elastic networks by Chadha, Devi, author. Wiley-IEEE Press, 2019.
• Advanced Digital Optical Communications, Second Edition by  Binh, Le Nguyen. CRC Press, 2015. 
• Enabling technologies for high spectral-efficiency coherent optical communication networks by Zhou, Xiang, Xie, Chongjin. Wiley, 2016. 
• Digital Processing : Optical Transmission and Coherent Receiving Techniques  by Binh, Le Nguyen. CRC Press, 2013.