Principles of Digital Communications I
MIT's introduction to the theory behind modern communications systems, the first of a two-course sequence (6.450, followed by 6.451). The course builds up a digital communication system block diagram by block diagram, covering data compression and the Lempel-Ziv algorithm, scalar and vector quantization, sampling, aliasing, and the Nyquist criterion, PAM and QAM modulation, signal constellations, finite-energy waveform spaces, and detection theory. It closes with modeling and system design considerations for wireless links. Materials come from MIT OpenCourseWare and include lecture notes, problem sets, and exams used in the actual MIT course, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA. No certificate is offered, but the full curriculum is available to study at no cost.