Course overview

Communication systems are vital to modern society. They efficiently exploit one of the most precious world commodity: the electromagnetic spectrum. From land and mobile phones to radio and digital interactive broadcasting, the internet and satellite-based services, they allow us to communicate speech, video and data signals for business, personal life, entertainment and leisure.

In the first year of this degree you’ll cover a range of topics including analogue, digital and programmable electronic, algorithms and programming, research methods, engineering sciences and mathematics.

In the second year, through the design group project and other activities, you will study data networks and protocols, analogue and digital communication systems, analogue systems analysis and design. You will also be able to choose optional topics such as foreign languages, control engineering or network simulation and design. Our microwave laboratory with an RF anechoic chamber and our analogue, digital and computer facilities provide a first-class hands-on approach to learning in all subjects supported by a dedicated teaching team.

After year two, you will be able to choose to take an optional (but recommended) sandwich year in industry supported by our Student Placement and Employability Centre (SPEC).

During the final two years you will go deeper and broader. Key topics include transmission techniques and broadcasting, digital signal processing, microwave and wireless technology, digital modulation and coding, mobile and satellite systems, and advanced electronic systems. Your portfolio will also be extended through the Multidisciplinary Group Project and an introduction to management techniques. Options include widening opportunities in the areas of VHDL and FPGA systems, advanced control engineering, network security and reliability.

Your analytical, problem-solving and design abilities will open a wide range of employment opportunities in areas such as terrestrial and satellite networks, professional electronics, governmental agencies, defence and mobile telecommunications.

The professional relevance and hands-on nature of the course help to ensure excellent employment prospects after you graduate.

The University's School of Engineering has a long and distinguished record of running accredited MEng degree courses. Home to many high-tech industries, Portsmouth is recognised as a centre for electronic and computer related business and our academic staff maintain close links with the world of work, both locally and further afield. This contact ensures that our courses always reflect the current and future needs of commerce and industry.

Career focused

The entrance criteria of this degree have been designed to comply with the requirements of the major engineering graduate programmes. Competent students can have the opportunity to apply their skills to real-life practical problems as part of the department’s partnership scheme with charities, local and global organisations. Please view the 'Career prospects' section for further details.

To find out more about placement opportunities in the Faculty of Technology, please visit our Student Placement and Employability Centre (SPEC).

Professionally accredited course that meets the needs of industry

This course has been accredited by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) under licence from the UK regulator, the Engineering Council. Accreditation is a mark of assurance that this degree meets the standards set by the Engineering Council in the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence (UK-SPEC).

This accredited degree will provide you with some of the underpinning knowledge, understanding and skills for eventual registration as a Chartered Engineer (CEng). Some employers recruit preferentially from accredited degrees and an accredited degree is likely to be recognised by other countries that are signatories to international accords.

All our MEng courses have been also awarded the EUR-ACE certificates.This indicates that they meet the European Framework Standards for fully fledged second cycle European engineering programmes.

The course also complies to the guidelines produced by the Royal Academy of Engineering.

The School of Engineering

The School of Engineering provides a friendly and supportive place for you to study. Extensive laboratory suites, covering analogue and digital electronics, microprocessors, telecommunications and control systems give you hands-on experience of electronics. We also have computer and network suites for CAD (Computer Aided Design), software development and computer networking.

We have a well-established research group, active in the fields of telecommunications and data communications and another group working in the areas of control, robotics and artificial intelligence. Research is used to inform all our teaching and provides an up-to-date education in an active and forward looking learning environment.

Course content

Year one

In your first year you will study:

• Writing and Research in the Workplace
• Mathematical Principles
• Engineering Sciences
• Introduction to Algorithms and Programming
• Introduction to Analogue Circuits
• Principles of Digital Systems

Year two

In your second year you will be able to study:

• Data Networks and Protocols
• Analogue and Digital Communications
• Network Simulation and Design Techniques
• Analogue Analysis and Design
• Engineering Mathematics
• Group Design Project
• Control Systems Analysis

Sandwich year (optional year in industry)

It has become increasingly evident in recent years that 'industry' places more and more emphasis on its employees planning their own career progression, which in turn, means planning their own appropriate training. A sandwich placement provides such initial training, and the advantages in terms of interview competitiveness and starting salary make it well worthwhile.

If you wish to enhance your CV, gain your industrial experience abroad and acquire some new and/or improved language skills, you might like to consider the Erasmus exchange programme as an option. The Erasmus programme enables all (UK/EU/International) students to study or work in one of the 31 participating countries and also provides a grant for the period abroad to assist with any extra costs incurred. For more information, please visit the Study Abroad pages of the University of Portsmouth website.

Our regulations state that you must spend at least 36 weeks on industrial placement in order to satisfy the requirements of the sandwich degree. However, we could hope you will have become a valued member of their team by this time and they may wish to keep you for a full year, or longer. It is also quite usual for the company to be willing to specify and support your final-year project.

The School has an Industrial Liaison Officer who will help place you for your sandwich year and your personal tutor will visit you at least once to monitor your progress.

We strongly recommend this option.

Year three

In your third year you will be able to study:

• Transmission Techniques and Broadcasting
• Digital Signal Processing
• Network Security and Reliability
• Multidisciplinary Group Project
• Advanced Electronic Systems
• VHDL and FPGA Systems
• Control Systems Design
• Analytical Management Techniques

Final year

In your final year you will study:

• Individual MEng Project
• Communication Systems Analysis
• Microwave and Wireless Technology
• Digital Modulation and Coding
• Mobile and Satellite Systems

Teaching and assessment

You will be taught using a mixture of lectures, subject tutorials, laboratory sessions and project work. You will have about 12 hours of lectures and subject tutorials a week. In addition, there are about six hours of laboratory and computer-based work, usually in groups of about 16 students. A brief description of each teaching activity is given below:

Lectures

Lectures form one means by which course material is introduced and explained to on-campus students. They are also important in that they set the pace of a unit and ensure that you know what you should be studying at any given time. Because extensive note taking during lectures distracts students from what is being said, we also provide handouts, study packs and web-based support.

Subject tutorials

In addition to the lecture periods, students in large classes may be sub-divided into groups to enable a rostered programme of subject tutorials to take place. These provide the opportunity to consolidate material in a less formal way than is possible in lectures. As well as dealing with individual and small group problems, tutorials will often include working through previously distributed question sheets.

Laboratory work

Laboratory work is of great importance in the formation of professional engineers and technologists. Experimental laboratory work in electronic subjects has a strong element of project-based learning. This puts the work in a practical design context from the outset and encourages you to use instruments and read data sheets with clear goals in mind, plus awork in teams to build your understanding of electronic design. In other subjects, laboratory work follows a more prescribed pattern and you will be expected  to take more responsibility for your work as the courses progress.

Computing and networking units have significant time scheduled in the appropriate computer suite. Practical computing work often consists of group assignments with a strong design emphasis. You are strongly encouraged to do as much preparatory analysis and design on paper before laboratory sessions, in order to make the best use of the resources. Units which make extensive use of computer aided design techniques also have significant amounts of computer time scheduled for assignment work.

Individual project

The project is rated at 40 credits and takes up the entire final year. You will use all the knowledge, understanding and skills acquired during the course to tackle and solve practical engineering problems in realistic situations, and with real-time and cost constraints. You are expected to manage your time professionally and maintain a log of your activities.

A formal presentation is required about two thirds of the way through the project and a formal report is submitted at the end. In addition projects are exhibited at the School Open Day.

Assessment

You will be assessed by a mixture of coursework and exams. Coursework is spread over a teaching period, with exams usually occurring at the end of each period. During group projects you are judged both on your technical and organisational achievement. In the final year you will undertake an individual project that will contribute significantly to your final degree classification.

Career prospects

Placement opportunities

In the Faculty of Technology we feel that students should be given as many opportunities as possible to gain meaningful work experience and build employability skills throughout their studies to make them more attractive to future employers.

Working with other University services, the Faculty’s Student Placement and Employability Centre (SPEC) ensure students have access to a range of volunteering and work experience opportunities, including year-long industrial placements (either in the UK or your home country), and provide support for the different types of application processes.

The type of placement role that could be relevant to this course includes:

• Assistant Site Test Engineer

To find out more about how you can gain work experience whilst studying MEng Communication Systems, please visit our Placements Office pages.

Graduate roles

When you graduate as a communication systems engineer, your skills and knowledge will open a wide range of employment opportunities in areas as diverse as consumer and professional electronics, robotics, defence, broadcasting and telecommunications. The problem-solving and analytical abilities of electronic engineers are also very attractive to research, financial and commercial organisations.

See more information on the occupational profile for Communications Engineers.

Purple Door Careers and Recruitment

Purple Door Careers and Recruitment  are happy to provide you with guidance about where your degree could take you. You can also get support with making effective application forms, CVs and psychometric testing. The recruitment team can assist you in finding a job, and they can provide you with graduate employer details. If you are looking to go on to further study they can also provide information regarding postgraduate study and training. You will have access to IT facilities and programmes for careers related work.

Facilities and features

The School provides a range of facilities to support your learning experience. Lectures, tutorials and seminars take place in the well equipped multimedia lecture theatres and classrooms.

You will have access to a wide range of state-of-the-art laboratory facilities to familiarise you with industry-standard equipment and software packages. The telecommunications and signal processing laboratory is equipped with instruments for generating, receiving and analysing high-frequency signals. Signal generators and spectrum analysers cover the communication bands up to 22 GHz. We also have an anechoic chamber for the measurement of antennas. Our new £1 million network laboratory rivals anything available at other British universities. It will give you access to over 250 servers with full remote access. This will enable you to configure and manage network solutions for customers from small businesses to large corporate systems. A range of electronic circuit boards that can be interconnected to form a number of typical communication systems are also available for your use.

The School teaching of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) is supported by both hardware and software laboratory facilities. The DSP development kits will allow you to transform your knowledge into real-world digital signal processing systems.

Our digital electronics and microprocessor laboratory has 45 fully equipped benches including scopes, network analysers, PCs and other standard electronic equipment for measurement purposes. There are also hardware/software development tools for design, development and implementation of microcontroller systems. In addition, there are professional hardware/software programming/testing VHDL environments for CPLD and FPGAs devices.

The analogue electronics laboratory has 24 fully equipped benches for testing and measurements of a wide range of electronic systems. All benches have PCs with relevant software suites such as circuit simulations (Gesseca, Spice Age, Microcap and Eagle) and Matlab.

The School has its own autonomous computer network, consisting of about 200 PCs running Linux and Windows. The School runs its own servers for anything that the network needs (DNS, DHCP, Kerberos, NIS etc). The network is a multiplatform transparent network; all computers can be accessed remotely for greater flexibility and use from home. Great care is given to security, with sophisticated Firewalls and VPNs in place.

You will also get the chance to learn and experiment with different networking technologies, as well as learning programming languages such as Java, HTML and C, and use a wide range of application packages such as OPNET and Wireshark to enable learning in all areas of computer networks and communication systems.

Maths Café

The Maths Café is a daily drop-in facility, where you can receive help on any maths or statistics problem you encounter in your studies. It operate in a friendly, informal location and provides handouts on key topics for you to take away. You can also  be shown how to use computer aided learning packages, which can be accessed from any computer attached to the University's computer network.

Learning Support Services

The School of Engineering offers various learning support and further development services to all students. They are additional to the normal academic support provided at all levels within the University, and they are run by teams of selected students.

Entry requirements

View all the entry requirements for MEng Communication Systems for the academic year 2013/14 (opens in new window).