In Module 2, you’ll dive into the heart of how information is prepared for efficient wireless transmission through analog carrier modulation and demodulation. You’ll explore how a low-frequency baseband message is converted into a high-frequency passband signal for transmission, and then how the receiver recovers the original message. The module walks you through key techniques such as amplitude modulation (AM), frequency modulation (FM), and then extends to advanced practices like heterodyning and frequency-division multiplexing (FDM). You’ll gain a clear understanding of why these methods matter in real-world systems and how they enable multiple signals to share a communication medium.

Module 3 introduces the core building blocks of digital communication, focusing on how streams of bits are transformed, transmitted, and recovered over a baseband channel. You’ll explore how bits map to symbol constellations, how pulse shaping controls bandwidth and limits intersymbol interference, and how the matched filter (correlation receiver) enables optimal detection of symbol waveforms. The module concludes with error-control coding, highlighting how redundancy improves reliability and how practical systems approach the fundamental limits of communication performance. Together, these concepts form the foundation of modern digital wireless systems.

Module 4 brings together all the concepts you’ve learned by exploring how point-to-point wireless link principles appear in real-world communication systems. You’ll examine a range of applications—including NASA’s Voyager deep-space communication link, satellite telemetry systems, microwave backhaul networks, and fixed wireless access—and compare how each one addresses unique challenges related to distance, power, bandwidth, and the physical environment. This module emphasizes how modulation, coding, link budgeting, and system design choices are shaped by real engineering constraints.

To conclude the course, you will complete a final synthesis homework assignment, where you integrate ideas from all four modules and apply them to analyze a point-to-point wireless communication scenario.