HON-Klon

Introduction

Large-scale networks as the Internet are crucial for day-to-day communication and nowadays affect all areas of life. In parallel, near-field communication and personal area networks are becoming increasingly important for connecting the digital with the physical world and in particular an individual's health. Building and harnessing these communication systems requires in-depth understanding and practical experience on the concepts of networking as well as network programming and troubleshooting methods. Starting from the application layer, all important parts and components of networks are explained, down to some of the physical aspects of wired and wireless technology. Most importantly, these considerations are not only done in theory but are accompanied with hands-on labs, to apply the learned concepts in practical scenarios.

The Telecommunications Lab at Saarland University is offering this course to teach networking fundamentals to undergraduates, as these topics are not part of the mandatory curriculum in Computer Science Bachelor program.

Curriculum

The course covers four major areas, giving you practical and theoretical knowledge to create, maintain and advance network environments, which are essential for today's fully-connected world. The following questions (among others) will be answered in this course:

  • Foundations of Communication and Networking.
    • What are buffers and queues for, why do you need sequence numbers and what is the advantage of push over pull?
    • Why are forwarding and routing not the same and what makes a hub different from a switch?
  • Top-down Tour through the ISO/OSI Model.
    • How do applications, such as HTTP and Email, use the Internet as a communication infrastructure, e.g. using TCP or UDP connections?
    • How are packets forwarded across a cable, a sub-network and even across the Internet itself?
  • Designing and Troubleshooting Small Networks.
    • How to use WireShark for network analysis and GNS3 for network simulation?
    • How can I write my own firewall rules and fix misconfigurations in a network?
  • Development of Network Applications.
    • How to write server and client applications for the next exciting Internet application?
    • How to modify data streams to ensure reliable transmission over unreliable networks?

Organization

  • Credit Points: 6 (ungraded, except for Systems Engineering students)
  • Format: Lab (Praktikum)
  • Audience:
    • ​Bachelor Students (typically in 3rd semester or higher, highly motivated 1st semester are also welcome).
    • If you are a Master Student you can still participate, but as you might have attended the "Data Networks" core lecture or a similar course at another university, large parts of the theory we cover are not going to be new for you.
  • Schedule:
    • 2 weeks presence time (10th Mar. – 21st Mar. 2025)
      • Time: 8:30 – 15:00 (lunch break roughly 12:00 – 13:00 and shorter breaks as schedule permits)
      • Room: E1 3 HS001
    • 2 weeks for implementing small networking projects (22th Mar. – 06th Apr. 2025)
    • a small exam on April 16th
      • Time: 14:00 – 15:00tbd
      • Room: E2 2 GHHtbd
    • a Re-Exam on May 20th
      • Time: 14:00 – 15:00
      • Room: C6 3 9.05
    • All the dates can be found here (as soon as they are fixed).
  • Language:
    • Lectures, Slides, Task Sheets, etc. in English.
    • Some instructors and tutors speak German so no problem if you don't understand something (bei Problemen: Fragen!)
  • Requisites:
    • Enough motivation and drive for taking part in a short but intensive course with many new concepts.
    • No prior networking knowledge required.
    • Elementary programming skills required (e.g. Programmierung 2, Programmieren für Ingenieure).
    • Rust skills are beneficial, but there will be tutorials on that.
    • This is not an open course, admission is needed (see below).

Admission

In order to ensure that you fulfill the requirements for this course and be able to keep with the fast pace, there is an admission test before the course starts. This is to ensure that you are not disappointed when putting a lot of effort (and free time in the semester break) into a course where you cannot keep up. Furthermore, this shows that you are dedicated and take the course seriously, which is needed for a short and intensive course as this one.

  • Date: 29th January 2025, 16:30
  • Place: E2.2 Günter-Hotz Lecture Hall
  • Duration: 30 minutes
  • Topics: Boolean Algebra, Bits and Bytes, Programming (a mock test can be found under materials)

Please register for this course if you want to take part in the admission. If you just stop by, there is NO guarantee that we have a booklet for you!

Audio-Visual Communication & Networks / 5G

Quick Links

Course Details

Continuing the positive experience from the last semesters, we have decided to offer the course "Audio/Visual Communications & Networks" in a format that considers the possibility for as well students as lecturer and tutors to give and / or consume parts of the course online using webconference tools:

  • One unit per week will be devoted to a pre-announced chapter of the underlying 5G NR eBook.
  • The other units of the week based on a manuscript will be devoted to the mathematical background of the techniques introduced.

Important:The course will be given synchronously, i.e. participation is live either in presence or online. An interactive manuscript will support preparation and reworking but cannot replace participation. We strongly encourage personal presence in the units.

Introduction

The course will focus on 5G New Radio, which is the recently specified fifth generation cellular system.
All students have access to a recent 5GNR eBook (see Literature).

Audio/Visual Communications & Networks will focus on 5G since from a telecommunications perspective the combination of audio/visual data – meaning inherently high data rate and putting high requirements on the real-time capabilities of the underlying network – and wireless transmission – that is unreliable and highly dynamic with respect to the channel characteristics and its capacity – is the most demanding application domain.
The lecture will build on the foundation layed as well in „Signals and Systems / Signale und Systeme“ as in „Digital Transmission and Signal Processing“ and it will apply the building blocks introduced there. The course will aim at being self-contained, however, it will not be able to repeat basic mathematical concepts and tools introduced in „Digital Transmission and Signal Processing“.

The course will introduce the frequency bands available for 5G and their characteristics with respect to propagation, it will shed light on several multiple access (MA) schemes like TDMA, FDMA, OFDMA and SDMA and the corresponding duplex schemes TDD and FDD. A part of the course will be devoted to so called MIMO (multiple input multiple output systems), since the use of several phase- and amplitude-correlated antennas has boosted the data-rate of telecommunications systems.

Prerequisites

„Audio/Visual Communications & Networks“ is a course during the main study period and by such requires a solid foundation of mathematics (differential and integral calculus) and probability theory. The course will build on the mathematical concepts and tools taught in „Digital Transmission and Signal Processing“ while trying to enable everyone to follow and to fill gaps by an accelerated study of the accompanying literature. „Signals and Systems“ as well as „Digital Transmission and Signal Processing“ are strongly recommended but not required.

Course Structure

Basic Rules

  • Please note that small changes and corrections will be applied to the lecture notes throughout the semester. If you find mistakes or have suggestions how to enhance the lecture notes we appreciate your input! 
  • Please don’t hesitate to tell us if you have any comments or suggestions related to lecture notes, task sheets, exercises or even organizational things. We will improve it soon so you can benefit from it, not only future students.

Lectures

  • The lecture will be offered in a hybrid format (classroom plus remote participation via MS Teams). Under special circumstances it might be advantageous or even required to omit the classroom and switch to fully remote. This will be announced on time.
  • MS Teams: AVCN WS 2025/26 Team (send a join request for remote participation)
  • Place: Campus E1.3, Room: HS001  (possible to join remotely via MS Teams)
  • Time:  Tuesday 10:30–11:45 and Wednesday 12:15 - 13:45 (start  October 14th)

Tutorials

  • Moodle: AVCN (WS25) (enrol to access quizzes and assignments)
  • Place: Campus C6.3, Room: 9.05  (in presence)
  • Time:  Thursday 14:15–15:45

Quizzes

  • Weekly Moodle quizzes with 15 minutes for 5 questions within the time below.
  • Place: Lecture room (or online via Moodle)
  • Time:  Tuesday 10:00–10:30

Task Sheets

  • Task sheets are published on the day succeeding the tutorials in Moodle.
  • You submit your solution and work on the tasks up to and including the following tutorial.
  • During the tutorial you can discuss and evolve your solutions.

Exam Dates

  • The exams will be held as ORAL exams.
    We will schedule all exam slots on the two dates as given below. The exact time of each slot and how you can choose a certain slot will be announced during the lecture.
  • Main Exam CW07, February, 2026, Place: C6 3 10.02, Slots tbd
  • Re-Exam CW13, March, 2026, Place: C6 3 10.02, Slots tbd

Exam Eligibility

  • The weekly quizzes and task sheets for this course will be divided into two parts, blocks A&B containing 6 quizzes and 6 task sheets each.
  • You need a minimum of 19.2 points (40%) of the 48 points achievable in a block to pass a block. (Each quiz is worth 5 points and each task sheet is worth 3 points.)
  • You must pass both block A and B to be eligible for the exam.
  • We will check attendance in the lectures. You need to collect 50% attendance points, with personal presence accounting for 1 point and hybrid participation accounting for 0.5 point.

Matlab

  • UdS has a MATLAB campus license which can be used by all university students for non-commercial purposes.

Literature

Additional Material

  • Aura Ganz, Zvi Ganz, Kitty Wongthavarawat: "Multimedia Wireless Networks - Technologies, Standards, and QoS", Prentice Hall, 2004
  • Matthew S. Gast: "802.11ac: A Survival Guide", O'Reilly, 2013
  • John G. Proakis, Masoud Salehi: "Communication Systems Engineering 2nd Edition", Prentice Hall, 2002
  • Ulrich Reimers: "Digital Video Broadcasting - The Family of International Standards for Digital Video Broadcasting", Springer, 2005
  • Claude E. Shannon, Warren Weaver: "The Mathematical Theory of Communication", University of Illinois Press, 1963
  • William Stallings: "Wireless Communications & Networks 2nd Edition", Prentice Hall, 2005

Digital Transmission & Signal Processing

Quick Links

Course Details

Continuing the positive experience from the last semesters, we have decided to offer the course "Digital Transmission & Signal Processing" in a format that considers the possibility for as well students as lecturer and tutors to give and / or consume parts of the course online using webconference tools.

Important:The course will be given synchronously, i.e. participation is live either in presence or online. An interactive manuscript will support preparation and reworking but cannot replace participation. We strongly encourage personal presence in the units.

Introduction

Digital Transmission & Signal Processing is the basic course on telecommunications. It refreshes foundations laid in "Signals and Systems / Signale und Systeme" but will also include current developments on using Artificial Intelligence / Neureal Networks in Telecommunicaiton.

To establish a strong foundation, the course will give an introduction into the various building blocks modern telecommunication systems incorporate. Sources, sinks, source and channel coding, modulation and multiplexing are the major keywords, but we will also deal with dedicated concepts like A/D- and D/A-converters and quantizers in a little bit more depth.

The course will refresh the basic transformations (Fourier, Laplace) that give access to system analysis in the frequency domain, it will introduce derived transformations (Z, Hilbert) for the analysis of discrete systems and modulation schemes. It will also introduce algebra on finite fields to systematically deal with error detection and correction schemes that play an important and ubiquitous role in modern communication systems.

Prerequisites

"Digital Transmission and Signal Processing" is a course during the main study period and by such requires a solid foundation of mathematics (differential and integral calculus) and probability theory. The course will, however, refresh those areas indispensably necessary for telecommunications and potential intensification courses and by this open this potential field of intensification to all participants.

Course Structure

Basic Rules

  • Please note that small changes and corrections will be applied to the lecture notes throughout the semester. If you find mistakes or have suggestions how to enhance the lecture notes we appreciate your input! 
  • Please don’t hesitate to tell us if you have any comments or suggestions related to lecture notes, task sheets, exercises or even organizational things. We will improve it soon so you can benefit from it, not only future students.

Lectures

  • The lecture will be offered in a hybrid format (classroom plus remote participation via MS Teams). Under special circumstances it might be advantageous or even required to omit the classroom and switch to fully remote. This will be announced on time.
  • MS Teams: DTSP WS 2025/26 Team (send a join request for remote participation)
  • Place: Campus E1.3, Room: HS001 (possible to join remotely via Teams)
  • Time: Tuesday 12:15–13:45 and Wednesday 08:30–10:00 (start October 14th)

Tutorials

  • Moodle: DTSP (WS25) (enrol to access quizzes and assignments)
  • Place: Campus C6.3, Room: 9.05 (in presence)
  • Time: Friday 10:30–11:45

Quizzes

  • Weekly Moodle quizzes with 15 minutes for 5 questions within the time below.
  • Place: Tutorial room (or online via Moodle)
  • Time: Friday 10:00–10:30

Task Sheets

  • Task sheets are published on the day succeeding the tutorials in Moodle.
  • You submit your solution and work on the tasks up to and including the following tutorial.
  • During the tutorial you can discuss and evolve your solutions.

Exam Dates

  • The exams will be held as WRITTEN exams
  • Main Exam - 09. February 2026, Place: E1 3 HS002, Time: 15:00–17:00
  • Re-Exam - 23. March 2026, Place: E1 3 HS002, Time: 15:00–17:00

Exam Eligibility

  • The weekly quizzes and task sheets for this course will be divided into two parts, blocks A&B containing 6 quizzes and 6 task sheets each.
  • You need a minimum of 19.2 points (40%) of the 48 points achievable in a block to pass a block. (Each quiz is worth 5 points and each task sheet is worth 3 points.)
  • You must pass both block A and B to be eligible for the exam.
  • We will check attendance in the lectures. You need to collect 50% attendance points, with personal presence accounting for 1 point and hybrid participation accounting for 0.5 point.

Exam

  • The exam contains 5 problems (each 10 points), solving 4 of them is sufficient for a 100% passing grade.
  • Minimum point threshold per exam task is 3 points.
  • (Near to) complete solutions are rewarded with 3 bonus points.

Matlab

  • UdS has a MATLAB campus license which can be used by all university students for non-commercial purposes.

Literature (potentially helpful but not required)