MSc Communications and Signal Processing

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2027, the tuition fees are as follows:

• MSc (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £17,000
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £40,300

The fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Fees for entry are subject to yearly review. The University reserves the right to increase your tuition fee by up to 7% each year for courses lasting more than one year, including to reflect rising costs associated with delivering our educational and wider student experience. Postgraduate fees information .

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

International student CAS deposit

Self-funded international applicants are required to pay a deposit of £2500 towards their tuition fees before a confirmation of acceptance for studies (CAS) is issued. Some applicants will be required to pay a higher deposit. More information on tuition fee deposits .

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

We offer a number of postgraduate taught scholarships and awards to outstanding UK and international students each year.

The University of Manchester is committed to widening participation in master's study, and allocates £300,000 in funding each year. Our Manchester Master's Bursaries are aimed at widening access to master's courses by removing barriers to postgraduate education for students from underrepresented groups.

We also welcome the best and brightest international students each year and reward excellence with a number of merit-based scholarships. See our range of master’s scholarships for international students .

And, if you have completed an undergraduate degree at The University of Manchester, or are currently in your final year of an undergraduate degree with us, you may be eligible for a discount of 10% on tuition fees if you choose to study on a taught postgraduate course here. Find out if you're eligible and how to apply .

For more information on master's tuition fees and studying costs, visit the University of Manchester funding for master's courses website to help you plan your finances.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIT:

(1) Wireless Communications

Introduction to modern wireless communication systems and mobile networks

Revision on digital communication, stochastic process and information theory

Radio wave propagation: Path loss, shadowing and multipath fading

Wireless channel mitigation techniques: diversity and combining techniques

Link and system level simulation and software defined radio for wireless communication systems experimentation

Multiple antennas (MIMO) wireless communication system

(2) Mobile Networks

Multiple Access & Multiuser communication

Cellular concepts and system design

Radio Resource Management schemes

Recent advances in wireless and mobile network

Current and future mobile network standards
 

The course unit aims to:

(1) Develop an understanding on the basic and advanced principles of Wireless Communications and Mobile Networks.

(2) The unit addresses the issues of wireless communications and mobile networks in physical, link and network layers. The wireless channels will be explained with existing mitigation techniques.

(3) Multi-user communication systems will also be studied with an emphasis on the broadcast nature of wireless communications.

(4) Mobile networks modelling, design and optimisation will be covered with aspects on network capacity, sustainability, and security, as well as existing and future mobile networks standards.

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

ILO 1: Explain the basic and advanced theories on wireless communications systems and mobile networks.

ILO 2: Classify the different types of wireless channel models; identify various diversity types; and apply mitigating techniques.

ILO 3: Experiment and analyse system performance for wireless systems.

ILO 4: Describe various multiple access techniques and identify their strengths and weaknesses.

ILO 5: Explain and design different types of mobile networks based on multiple quality of service, such as network capacity, sustainability, and security

ILO 6: Discuss and communicate individual technical work effectively, and evaluate team working effectiveness.

Asynchronous contents: videos, quiz, lecture notes, additional readings

Synchronous sessions: Lectures with worked examples.

Laboratory experiments

Coursework: Two lab reports, 6 hours each, feedback provided within 3 weeks of submission.

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[1] A. Goldsmith, Wireless communications, Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 2005.

[2] S. S. Haykin, Modern wireless communications, International ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.; Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2004

[3] T. S. Rappaport, Wireless communications: principles and practice, 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall PTR, 2002.

[4] A. F. Molisch, Wireless communications, 2nd ed. Chichester, U.K: IEEE, 2011.

[5] E. Dahlman, 4G, LTE-advanced pro and the road to 5G, Third edition. London: Academic Press, 2016.

[6] H. Holma, A. Toskala, and T. Nakamura, Eds., 5G technology: 3GPP new radio, First edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2020.