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Postgraduate Elective

CS6120: Wireless Communication and Networking

A three-part course covering RF communication fundamentals, RF sensing pipelines, and modern wireless networking systems, with a strong emphasis on connecting theory to real platforms such as SDRs, WiFi, UWB, LoRa, BLE, and satellite systems.

CS6120 course image
Latest Offering Diwali'25 (July - Nov, 2025)
Instructor Ayon Chakraborty
Structure Communication, sensing, networking

(i) Communication. The course begins with RF signals in time and frequency domains, signal fading, propagation-loss models, modulation techniques such as BPSK, QPSK, and m-QAM, and the BER behavior of these schemes. It also covers OFDM, channel estimation, and equalization, supported by demonstrations on SDR platforms including USRP, HackRF, and RTLSDR.

(ii) Sensing. The second component focuses on RF sensing using CIR and CFR representations, with applications built on UWB and WiFi signals that provide different operating points in spatial resolution and coverage. Deep learning on RF data, such as CNN-based classification of amplitude or phase spectrograms, is used to connect signals to applications like navigation, human activity and gesture recognition, and material classification.

(iii) Networking. The final segment studies wireless networking, including the IEEE 802.11 WiFi MAC, and then broadens to current IoT wireless systems such as LoRa, BLE, and RFID. The course closes with LEO satellite networks and their role in modern communication infrastructure.

Books

  • Cory Beard and William Stallings, Wireless Communication Networks and Systems, Pearson. Primary reference.
  • Vijay Garg, Wireless Communications and Networking, First Edition, 2008, Morgan Kaufmann. Additional reference.