Networks and Communications

A worldwide trend with huge impact on our society is the ever increasing interconnectivity of both people and machines. Smart phones and the Internet have changed the way we live and work, and the next tech epoch is just in its infancy: the Internet of things. It will connect trillions of embedded devices and robots, support autonomous cars, and enable remote surgery, to give a few examples.  

In these exciting times, the University of Klagenfurt offers high-quality academic education in Networks and Communications whose graduates find high-quality jobs in telecommunications, electronics, Internet, automotive and aerospace, and consulting.

Which courses are offered?

Compulsory Lectures

• Mobile Communications (Christian Bettstetter): Antennas; radio propagation; diversity; channel coding; modulation; multiple access; cellular concept; medium access control; WLAN.
• Signal Processing for Communications (Andrea Tonello): Signal theory; random processes; complex signals representation; analog modulation; optimum quantization; digital modulation and optimum detection; optimal sequence estimation and linear equalization algorithms.
• Sensor Networks (Bernhard Rinner): Hardware and software aspects; medium access control protocols; routing; synchronization; security and privacy; applications and case studies.

Each compulsory lecture is accompanied by an exercise or lab course given by postdoctoral researchers or doctoral students with a teaching assistantship.

Advanced Lectures

• Pervasive Computing (Bernhard Rinner): Wireless personal networking; localization; identification; context-awareness; sensor networks; wearable computing; cooperation; middleware systems; nontechnical aspects.
• Wireless Networks (Christian Bettstetter): Network architecture; mobility protocols; LTE networks; security; ad hoc networks: routing, relaying, connectivity, capacity; economic, health, and social aspects.
• Smart Grids (Wilfried Elmenreich): Energy generation; energy distribution networks; photovoltaics and wind power; energy sustainability; smart microgrids; smart metering and home automation; e-mobility.
• Information Theory (Johannes Huber): Basic definitions; source coding theorem; lossless compressing codes; channel coding; information theory for continuous random variables; tradeoff between power and bandwidth efficiency; rate distortion theory.
• Advanced Wireless Communications (Andrea Tonello): Mobile wireless channel; baseband representation of a digital modulation system; performance analysis of digital modulation in fading channels; antenna diversity techniques and performance; multicarrier modulation; spread spectrum systems; ultra wide band modulation; wireless standards.
• Simulation of Networked Systems (Wilfried Elmenreich): Data analysis; random numbers and random variables; agent-based simulation; Netlogo; simulation-based design of self-organizing systems; RAPSim microgrid simulation; simulation in computer games; wireless network simulation.
• Stochastic Modeling and Analysis of Networked Systems (tbd): Probability theory; stochastic processes: Poisson process, renewal theory, Markov chains, branching processes, queuing theory; network theory: graphs, shortest path problems, epidemics, and other problems.
• Multimedia Systems (László Böszörményi, Klaus Schöffmann): Quality of service and resource Management; multimedia networking; multimedia servers; social media.
• Power-Line Communications (Andrea Tonello): Channel characterization; channel modeling; transmission line theory; background and impulsive noise models; multiple input multiple output; physical layer techniques; medium access control; resource allocation algorithms; relaying and cooperative schemes; standards and protocols.

Additional lectures, exercise courses, and labs are offered as supplementary courses and free electives.