Electronic and Communication Engineering BEng(Hons)

This module is laboratory based and you’ll complete a log book to record your progress, leading to you developing a formal report/business plan on which you’ll be assessed. Detailed assessment criteria and examples of excellent past work are provided to you at the outset and feedback is given at regular intervals. In the first term you’ll work in pairs or groups on a series of design, build and test exercises, which you record in your log book. In the second term you’ll work as part of a team to design, construct and evaluate a marketable electronic product. The formal report (one per team) should include business/marketing plans as well technical information.

The module contains a range of basic engineering mathematics including numbers, functions, linear mathematics, calculus and numerical techniques to support the engineering modules.

The Professional Development module will introduce you to the business dimension of engineering. Emphasis will be placed upon developing an appreciation of the role of the engineer/ technologist in terms of their responsibilities, ethical behaviour and contribution to the business team. You will acquire general transferable skills related to your study techniques, communication (including report writing and oral presentations), CV preparation and planning for your career. The module integrates the development of personal and practical skills in the context of problem based learning (PBL) and laboratory-based activities.

In this module you’ll study the fundamentals of electrical engineering. You’ll explore how to determine the voltage and current of circuits (circuit theorems) as well as studying electrostatics, conduction and electromagnetism (field theory). You’ll be encouraged to discuss practical examples of resistors, capacitors and inductors, which can be an aid when you come to use these components in practice. The topics this module covers are fundamental to the whole of electrical engineering and will be useful throughout your course.

In this module you’ll explore the fundamentals of electronics, both digital and analogue. You'll be introduced to the basic digital functions AND, OR and NOT and the appropriate methods of representing digital information. Along with helping you to gain an understanding of technical datasheets parameters and memory devices, you’ll have the chance to gain skills in designing digital circuits from a given specification. Analogue design covers diode, transistor and operational amplifier circuit operation. You’ll also be supported in building circuits in the laboratory and testing them.


In this module you will be introduced to MATLAB and SIMULINK software to enable modelling of the dynamic response of instruments, devices and systems to different types of input - for example thermometers, dc motors, electronic filters and suspension systems. You’ll be supported in gaining an understanding of how laplace transforms are used to simulate processes and how they are used in the design of controllers for controlling the output from complex systems - such as positions control systems. You’ll be given the opportunity to design simple controllers for various processes using proportional and integral control and explore how to determine whether such systems are likely to become unstable. You’ll explore how to analyse the frequency content of instrumentation signals using discrete fourier transforms and you’ll study how to design appropriate filters to eliminate unwanted frequencies. The module also covers how cross correlation methods are used in velocity measurement systems.

Embedded systems are used in everyday products such as mobile phones, cars, cameras, printers and toys. These embedded systems contain a small computer on a single integrated circuit called microcontroller. This module introduces the principle of embedded systems which can sense their surrounding environment by receiving signals from a variety of transducers and control attached actuators such as lights and motors according to a specified strategy. You’ll have the opportunity to design and develop efficient ‘C’ programs in practical sessions and download them onto development boards containing many sensors and actuators. This will allow you to see your programs in action.

This module covers the design and analysis of Analogue and Digital electronics circuits and systems. You'll be supported in building on the fundamental theory you studied in Electronics 1 and in using industrial computer-aided design (CAD) tools. You'll study analogue electronics topics including single transistor circuit operation (DC, AC and hybrid r modelling) as well as multistage transistor amplifier circuits (biasing and low/high frequency response compensation analysis). You'll investigate extensive operational amplifier (op-amp) circuit structures including, active filter design (single and multi-order) with defined characteristics, with consideration of device manufacturer data sheet information. The digital electronics introduces you to a hardware description language, namely VHDL (VHSIC Hardware Description Language), along with the design and analysis of combinational and sequential logic circuit structures (finite state machines). You'll also be supported in undertaking the design of analogue to digital and digital to analogue converters (ADCs and DACs) to enable interfacing of analogues and digital systems.

This module aims to provide you with a greater insight into electric and magnetic forces and fields and their unification in Maxwell’s equations. The module material has been designed to support you in gaining a deeper understanding of fields and circuits and a knowledge of when and where to use appropriate scientific principles and methods. The module will address electrical principles and relate them to engineering applications. You'll be supported in developing the knowledge and analytical skills required for further study of electrical engineering topics.

This module introduces you to the fundamentals of communications. It covers basic modulation methods such as AM and FM and how to generate and demodulate them, as well as how a radio receiver works. You’ll also be given the opportunity to explore digital communications, transmission lines (lengths of cables) and noise in receivers. The theory is backed up by lab sessions, which are aimed at helping to further develop your understanding of the subject.

This module has been designed to build on the knowledge you have gained so far. You’ll study noise in receivers and examine the noise performance of AM and FM detectors. You’ll be supported in expanding your knowledge of noise by examining the error rate performance of a cable link (such as a telephone line) and you’ll also have the chance to explore optical communications. Other topics that may be covered include aerials, satellite communications, the ionosphere, modems, digital radio and TV.

The module combines the theory of signal processing and analysis of discrete time systems, with practical aspects of digital signal processing (DSP) applied to the design of digital filters. We will focus on signal processing operations and analysis in time and frequency domain and digital filter (FIR and IIR) design and simulation using MATLAB. You’ll be supported in implementing your digital filter design using DSP software and hardware development systems. A range of DSP design case studies (for example audio filters and two-dimensional filters for image processing), will be used to illustrate typical DSP applications through practical laboratory work.

This module covers the design and analysis of analogue integrated circuits (ICs) structures, incorporating Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJTs), Junction Field Effect Transistors (JFETs), Metal-Oxide Semiconductor FETs (MOSFETs), Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS), and Bipolar-CMOS (BiCMOS) technologies. Advanced op-amp based IC systems will be developed through the design, analysis and integration of fundamental building blocks (differential input, gain and output stages, current mirrors and biasing circuits, etc). Low distortion and high-output power capability audio IC designs will also be considered along with complete integrated system case studies.

This module aims to build on the digital electronics knowledge you gained in your second year; covering system and circuit design, modeling, layout, fabrication and test of integrated circuits (ICs). You’ll be encouraged to investigate the various stages of design and techniques used to improve system performance and function: from top-level specification using hardware description languages, (typically VHDL) through to transistor level layout. Throughout this module the compromises required to achieve an optimum design solution will be considered.