New to RF: System Design
System design involves knowing how the specifications of individual components adds up to deliver the desired performance (i.e. range and battery life) of your end product. A knowledge of signal formats and methods for encoding information onto RF waveforms is also essential.
Over the past two decades, there has been a significant increase in the complexity of RF technology to meet the growing demand for fixed and mobile communication systems. Moving forward, we expect this trend to continue with emerging cellular and wireless standards employing complex modulation schemes and occupying higher bandwidth while emphasizing stringent spectrum efficiency requirements. These advances call for employing sophisticated design principles at both the circuit and system levels and hence the need for a comprehensive understanding of the radio modem.
This course is intended for design, application and test engineers as well as technicians interested to learn about the system aspect of the radio design space covering the entire signal chain from antenna to bits and back. The aim is apply intuitive system design methods to dissect the radio modem at RF, analog and digital domains with emphasis on: a) physical understanding of the interaction between components and different radio architectures and b) quantitative performance evaluation using simple hand calculations and simulation. Throughout the course, students will be exposed not only to theoretical analysis but also to concrete examples of radio architectures from existing commercial systems (GSM, WCDMA, WLAN, Bluetooth and WiMAX). Towards the end of this course, students will build using commercial system design tools- a simple but powerful full radio transceiver system (including both digital transmitter and receiver blocks) and measure end-to-end metrics such as bit error rate (BER), error vector magnitude (EVM) and spectrum emission.
Feb 24-Feb 28, 2025: San Jose, CA: Presented by: Waleed KhalilLearn individual topics from three of our all-time most popular RF/Wireless courses at your own pace - via the RF Mentor Academy subscription from Besser Associates.
: On Demand, Besser Associates Online Academy: Presented by: Rick Fornes : On Demand, Besser Associates Online Academy: Presented by: Rick FornesThis new online course is the next step in our popular Applied RF Engineering online series. Based on feedback from our corporate customers, this course covers topics related to signals, modulation, propagation, and antennas. As an added bonus, students are encouraged to work on signal processing labs using Octave/Matlab to create and explore modulation waveforms. Coming soon - check back often or send us a message for more information!
Feb 17-Jul 18, 2025: RF Certifications Online, Besser Associates Online Academy: Presented by: Rex Frobenius Apr 21-Sep 19, 2025: RF Certifications Online, Besser Associates Online Academy: Presented by: Rex Frobenius Sep 22-Feb 13, 2026: RF Certifications Online, Besser Associates Online Academy: Presented by: Rex FrobeniusComing soon!
Feb 17-Jul 18, 2025: RF Certifications Online, Besser Associates Online Academy: Presented by: Rex Frobenius Apr 21-Sep 19, 2025: RF Certifications Online, Besser Associates Online Academy: Presented by: Rex Frobenius Jul 21-Dec 12, 2025: RF Certifications Online, Besser Associates Online Academy: Presented by: Rex Frobenius Sep 22-Feb 13, 2026: RF Certifications Online, Besser Associates Online Academy: Presented by: Rex Frobenius