Communications and Digital Radio Techniques

The Sysblocks communication panel includes three Sysblocks boards and a signal mixer board on a plastic panel with 6 micro BNC leads, power supply and USB lead. This configuration allows students to experiment with lots of different types of communications and examine their characteristics.

The first Sysblocks board is used to modulate and / or encode a signal into a digital format. The second is used to generate noise. The encoded / modulated signal is mixed with this noise in the mixer board and then fed into the third Sysblocks board, where the signal is demodulated / decoded and fed to the outputs.

Separate programs are used in each Sysblock and this configuration allows students to experiment with multiple systems and examine their noise characteristics.

Students use conventional oscilloscopes and spectrum analysers to examine the results of signal processing in a music and DSP context.

Communications and Digital Radio Techniques

Learning objectives

• AM and FM
• Digital communications systems
• Modulation / Demodulation
• Encoders / Decoders
• Phase Locked Loops
• PRBS and Bit Error Rates
• AM, FM, QPSK, XPSK, APSK, FSK, and OOK
• Digital Radio Techniques
• Spread Spectrum techniques