Computer Science and Electronic Engineering MEng

Fundamental course on circuit analysis techniques.

The module comprises of two parts Digital Electronics and Integrated Electronics. For the Digital part, students are provided with the knowledge of number systems, laws of Boolean algebra and introduced to the basic methods for designing combinational and sequential logic circuits. For the Integrated part, students are introduced to various silicon electronic devices and provided with the opportunity to understand the basic principles of silicon microelectronics designs processes including designing layouts for simple circuit.

This module aims to introduce students to fundamental electronic devices (diodes and transistors), and how these devices are used in amplifier and switching circuits. The module is assessed via two laboratory sessions (20%) and two coursework online assignments (80%).

Introductory module that teaches practical skills for electrical engineering students, focusing on basic laboratory skills. The practical skills are linked with theory presented in other Year 1 modules including those on analogue and digital electronics, and electromagnetics. The module includes an introduction to a technical programming language (MATLAB) and an introduction to the ethical and sustainability issues that face modern engineers.

The intention of COMP122 is to introduce students to the concepts and methodology of object-oriented programming using the Java programming language. Topics covered include hierarchical structures, polymorphism, collections and iterators, exception handling, and graphical user interface design. Basic concepts of software design methodology, testing, and version control are also included in the module. It is normally expected that students have prior programming experience.

Mathematics for students registered in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, to support their technical modules.

Basic mathematics for students registered in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, concentrating on those groups of students who have, on the average, weaker preparation for University level Maths such as entrants with the BTEC qualification (but not limited to that group). Exam practice is another important component of this module. This module follows on from ELEC191

The module provides an introduction to procedural programming using current language platforms. The module incorporates program design, problem solving, the importance of maintainable, robust software and testing as well as introducing procedural language main programming constructs. Students gain practical experience with program design, programming and testing during weekly laboratory sessions.

This module is for students that already have some programming skills. Students will learn about the two main programming paradigms: imperative programming and functional programming. Since most introductory programming courses teach imperative programming, this module will focus on the functional paradigm. Students will learn how to program in Haskell, a popular functional programming language. They will learn how to formulate programs in a functional way, and the common techniques and idioms that are used to solve problems in functional programming.

This module will teach fundamental knowledge on communication systems.

This module introduces students to the problems arising from databases, including concurrency in databases, information security considerations and how they are solved; the integration of heterogeneous sources of information and the use of semi-structured data; non-relational databases and the economic factors involved in their selection and to techniques for analysing large amounts of data, the security issues and commercial factors involved with them.

​This module covers two areas.  In digital electronics, it covers topics which build on the basic knowledge gained in the first year digital electronics programme and learning some hardware description language (HDL) programming. In microprocessor systems, it introduces the topic from the basics describing how a microprocessor works and learning some assembly language programming.

The module concerns the understanding of how electronic amplifier circuits work and some basic ideas on how to design them. This requires an appreciation of linear small-signal equivalent circuits based on device physics and how to use them to assist the design process. Students will also learn how to break down complex circuits into simpler building blocks and how these blocks in turn, represented by linear equivalent circuits, can be combined to achieve the desired functionality. How negative feedback can be applied to produce high performance, stable circuits with high tolerance. The current state of the art is emphasised together with a historical perspective, noting some of the pioneers in the field.

This module covers the design and operation of instrumentation devices as well as the design of continuous time control systems.

The aim of this module is to provide students with practical work which underpins, confirms and gives application focus for academic study, while testing a wide range of skills.

Introduces continuous and discrete signal operations and analysis, the frequency domain and spectral analysis, including Fourier Series and Fourier, Laplace and z Transforms. Introduces system quantification and analysis, including pole-zero plots, feedback, basic stability criteria and block diagrams.

This module deals with the issues associated with the analysis, design, implementation and testing of significant computing systems (that is, systems that are too large to be designed and developed by a single person).

This module covers the concepts of distributed systems and the underlying principles of distributed computing and discusses the issues and various solutions proposed in the distributed computing community. Specifically, communication and broadcast, election algorithms, synchronization and concurrency, fault-tolerance and security related issues will be discussed in the lectures. Where applicable practical implementations of the concepts will be introduced.

​Individual project for MEng students

This course will help student to understand the object-oriented design concept and to gain knowledge and practical skills of C++ as an advanced programming language.

On successful completion of the module, students should be able to understand/design/develop C++ applications (both console and GUI-based) with a specific emphasis on developing GUI-based applications.

In this module students gain an understanding of the construction and operation of embedded computer systems and their components. Furthermore they gain an understanding of how computer performance is dependent upon the design of computer architectures and sub-circuits.

Introduction to neural network theory, applications and artificial intelligence.

​This module covers project management for year 3 students registered in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics.  Entrepreneurial skills are also be covered.

The Aims of this module are as follows:

To introduce the student to various aspects of advanced modern management.

To develop a knowledge and understanding of modern management tools.

To stimulate an appreciation of management and its importance in organisational success.

This module provides an extensive coverage of the theory and practice of digital and wireless communication systems, to allow the students to be able to design and develop digital and wireless communication systems, with an awareness of all the main factors involved and of existing and emerging technologies.

A broad range of topics are covered. Case studies and example tutorials emphasise the practical aspects of digital control design and optimisation.​

As more complex computational systems are used within critical applications, it is becoming essential that these systems are formally specified. Such specifications are used to give a precise and unambiguous description of the required system. In addition, as computational systems become more complex in general, formal specification can allow us to define the key characteristics of systems in a clear way and so help the development process. Formal specifications provide the basis for verification of properties of systems. While there are a number of ways in which this can be achieved, the model-checking approach is a practical and popular way to verify the temporal properties of finite-state systems. Indeed, such temporal verification is widely used within the design of critical parts of integrated circuits, has recently been used to verify parts of the control mechanism for one of NASA’s space probes, and is now beginning to be used to verify general Java programs.

This module will introduce: the principles of standard formal methods, such as Z; the basic notions of temporal logic and its use in relation to reactive systems; the use of model checking techniques in the verification of reactive systems.

This module is an introduction to the area of algorithmic game theory, which is a novel area in the intersection of economics and computer science. It provides tools for dealing with and analysing problems related to applications motivated by the Internet. Examples involve various Internet auctions and e-commerce systems, like, Google’s sponsored search, Ebay auctions, recommendation systems, etc.

Multi-agent systems have emerged as one of the most important areas of research and development in information technology in the 1990s. A multi-agent system is one composed of multiple interacting software components known as agents, which are typically capable of co-operating to solve problems that are beyond the abilities of any individual member. Multi-agent systems are important primarily because they have been found to have very wide applicability, in areas as diverse as industrial process control and electronic commerce. This module will begin by introducing the student to the notion of an agent, and will lead them to an understanding of what an agent is, how they can be constructed, and how agents can be made to co-operate effectively with one another to solve problems.

​The aims of this module are: To introduce students to the fundamental principles of opto/electronic systems for the transfer of information. To introduce the duality of light as both wave and ray.  To show intensity and phase related optical principles. ​To demonstrate optical information transfer through a number of applications.​

This module is aimed at developing the basic framework for signal processing and to demonstrate its applications. Also, the module provides students with a good understanding of the types, behaviours and design of FIR and IIR digital filters.

Teaching and learning are provided through a variety of means like formal lectures, problem sheets, supplementary questions, along with formative and summative online tests (through CANVAS, the electronic VLE system).

Assessment is carried out by means of two assignments and final (written) exam.

The overall aim of this module is to introduce students to a range of advanced, near-research level topics in contemporary software engineering. The actual choice of topics will depend upon the interests of the lecturer and the topics current in the software engineering research literature at that time. The course will introduce issues from a problem (user-driven) perspective and a technology-driven perspective where users have new categories of software problems that they need to be solved, and where technology producers create technologies that present new opportunities for software products. It will be expected that students will read articles in the software engineering research literature, and will discuss these articles in a seminar-style forum.

Biology inspired adaptive algorithms such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and Genetic Algorithms (GAs) play an important role in modern computing, information processing, and machine learning. The latest increase in computer power ensured broad use of the algorithms to solve problems in science and engineering previously considered impossible to tackle. ANNs are now broadly used in pattern recognition, including speech recognition and classification problems, statistics, functional analysis, modelling financial series with considerable stochasticity, etc. GAs are search procedures based on the mechanics of natural selection and natural genetics. They provide effective solutions to a variety of optimisation problems in economics, linguistics, engineering, and computer science. Both ANNs and GAs can exploit massively parallel architectures to speed up problem solving and provide further understanding of intelligence and adaptation.The main goals of the module are to introduce students to some of the established work in the field of Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms and their applications, particularly in relation to multidisciplinary research. To equip students with a broad overview of the field, placing it in a historical and scientific context. The module provides students with the knowledge and skills necessary to keep up-to-date in actively developing areas of science and technology and be able to make reasoned decisions.

The module introduces to the students the basic concepts of electrical plasmas and how they are used in industry. It concentrates on the engineering principles behind plasma technology rather than the physics of the discharge, however some mathematical approaches are explored so that quantification of the action of plasmas upon material surfaces can be made. The module explains how a gas can turn into a plasma and how high energy ions in the plasma can be generated to process a substrate, such as silicon wafer in micro-electronics fabrication. The module is taught by a mixture of power points notes and chalk and talk. There are a number of question sheets given out to help the students understand the basis plasma-material processes. On completion, students will understand how plasmas are used in industry, they will have an appreciation of some aspects of simple design and how plasmas can be configured for the next generation of fusion power stations.

This module introduces the principles of communications networks, thier components and protocols.

Students are provided with basic concepts about network architectures, the reference models used to describe them, the major protocols used at each communications layer, and the tools to analyse the performance of link layer, median access control, Network and Transport layer protocols.

The main protocols for routing packets over the Internet are also introduced, along with an overview of the packet switching architectures used in the core of today’s routers.

This module introduces students to the digital design techniques used in industry and research. The methods for describing digital systems using the Verilog Hardware Description Language (HDL) are introduced. Students will examine the operation of the MIPS Processor and will also be introduced to Altera’s NIOS-II Processor. The module is assessed via four assignments and two class tests. Altera’s Quartus package is used for sythesising the digital systems.

This module is aimed to provide an extensive overview of the information theory and coding. Different source codes and channel codes are discussed. Cryptography is also covered.

The module introduces formalisms to reason about knowledge and information. One such formalism is epistemic logic, where one can explicitly represent of what an agent (robot, human, system) knows about the world or about others, as in "I have sent a message, how do I know that it has been received, and that the receiver knows I know this?"

To enable students to develop a general understanding of a wide range of aspects of the design function in a manufacturing company and its management, and in particular a comprehensive understanding of the Design Process. The core of the module is a detailed study of a six-phase model of the Design Process derived from several authors and BS7000: Product Planning and Feasibility; Design Specification; Conceptual Design; Embodiment Design; Detail Design; Post-Design-Release.

Final Group Project for MEng students

Masters module on practical algorithms and data structures for large datasets.

The module will teach students advanced techniques of signal processing.

This module provides an extensive coverage of the theory and practice of digital and wireless communication systems, to allow the students to be able to design and develop digital and wireless communication systems at an advanced level, with an awareness of all the main factors involved and of existing and emerging technologies.

The module aims to provide an understanding of measurment and monitoring and the sensors that are used in power systems. It focusses on a limited number of examples in order to demonstrate the problems encountered in deploy measurement and monitoring systems.

This module will cover three aspects of ARM Cortex M Microprocessors.

The general functionality of the Cortex M series will be introduced along with the Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) Assignment one will be based on Assembly Language Programming.

The internal bus operation of the AHB-Lite interface will be introduced. For Assignment two students will be expected to interface a peripheral to the AHB-Lite bus using a Cortex-M0 soft core. The peripheral and the interface will be coded using Verilog. They will then be required to write a program to verify the operation of their peripheral3. The final aspect will be on using Real-Time operating systems. This will include how synchronisation, communication and resource sharing is implemented using the RTX real-time operating system.

The third and final assignment will be on using RTX to implement a multi-threaded papplication.

​The module "Privacy and Security" covers topics such as: identification and authentication, monitoring protocols, attacks and defences, legal and ethical issues and future directions.

This module is aimed for the students to gain a good understanding of radio propagation for wireless systems such as mobile radio and radar. The radio propagation characteristics and theories will be introduced and discussed. Radio propagation models in various medium and scenarios will also be introduced and discussed, and then applied to some systems.

Safety and Dependability will cover techniques for the validation of systems against formal specifications. In a first part, safety specifications (something bad never happens) using the Hoare calculus and safe abstraction are covered. A second part refers to termination (something good eventually happens), exploiting well foundedness. In a third part, Markov chains and decision processes are studied, extending the qualitative safety and termination problems from the first part to qualitative/probabilistic properties, and extending them to a simple probabilistic specification language, PCTL. As part of the module, the ability of formulating (probabilistic) models as Markov chains and decision processes are taught, as well as the use of of-the-shelf tools like PRISM or IscasMC for their analysis.

​This module gives a comprehensive coverage of two most popular programming languages, C++ and MATLAB. It aims to help students to gain an understanding of the Functional Decomposition method for program design, and practical skills of designing and coding software for engineering applications based on a problem specification.

This module covers two areas. An introduction to the "Internet of Things" which introduces the topic from the basics describing its evolution, its architecture and its application to real-life scenarios. Students will then develop a real IoT application which builds on the basic knowledge of embedded systems and programming, obtained in a EEE or related B.Eng degree which includes knowledge of digital electronics and microprocessor systems and the ability to programme in C.

This module will provide advanced modeling, simulation and control techniques and to develop student’s skill of considering engineering problem in a system point of view.

Biology inspired adaptive algorithms such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and Genetic Algorithms (GAs) play an important role in modern computing, information processing, and machine learning. The latest increase in computer power ensured broad use of the algorithms to solve problems in science and engineering previously considered impossible to tackle. ANNs are now broadly used in pattern recognition, including speech recognition and classification problems, statistics, functional analysis, modelling financial series with considerable stochasticity, etc. GAs are search procedures based on the mechanics of natural selection and natural genetics. They provide effective solutions to a variety of optimisation problems in economics, linguistics, engineering, and computer science. Both ANNs and GAs can exploit massively parallel architectures to speed up problem solving and provide further understanding of intelligence and adaptation.The main goals of the module are to introduce students to some of the established work in the field of Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms and their applications, particularly in relation to multidisciplinary research. To equip students with a broad overview of the field, placing it in a historical and scientific context. The module provides students with the knowledge and skills necessary to keep up-to-date in actively developing areas of science and technology and be able to make reasoned decisions.

The overall aim of this module is to introduce students to a range of advanced, near-research level topics in contemporary software engineering. The actual choice of topics will depend upon the interests of the lecturer and the topics current in the software engineering research literature at that time. The course will introduce issues from a problem (user-driven) perspective and a technology-driven perspective where users have new categories of software problems that they need to be solved, and where technology producers create technologies that present new opportunities for software products. It will be expected that students will read articles in the software engineering research literature, and will discuss these articles in a seminar-style forum.

This module is an introduction to the area of algorithmic game theory, which is a novel area in the intersection of economics and computer science. It provides tools for dealing with and analysing problems related to applications motivated by the Internet. Examples involve various Internet auctions and e-commerce systems, like, Google’s sponsored search, Ebay auctions, recommendation systems, etc.

​The aims of this module are: To introduce students to the fundamental principles of opto/electronic systems for the transfer of information. To introduce the duality of light as both wave and ray.  To show intensity and phase related optical principles. ​To demonstrate optical information transfer through a number of applications.​

The module introduces to the students the basic concepts of electrical plasmas and how they are used in industry. It concentrates on the engineering principles behind plasma technology rather than the physics of the discharge, however some mathematical approaches are explored so that quantification of the action of plasmas upon material surfaces can be made. The module explains how a gas can turn into a plasma and how high energy ions in the plasma can be generated to process a substrate, such as silicon wafer in micro-electronics fabrication. The module is taught by a mixture of power points notes and chalk and talk. There are a number of question sheets given out to help the students understand the basis plasma-material processes. On completion, students will understand how plasmas are used in industry, they will have an appreciation of some aspects of simple design and how plasmas can be configured for the next generation of fusion power stations.

The Aims of this module are as follows:

To introduce the student to various aspects of advanced modern management.

To develop a knowledge and understanding of modern management tools.

To stimulate an appreciation of management and its importance in organisational success.

Multi-agent systems have emerged as one of the most important areas of research and development in information technology in the 1990s. A multi-agent system is one composed of multiple interacting software components known as agents, which are typically capable of co-operating to solve problems that are beyond the abilities of any individual member. Multi-agent systems are important primarily because they have been found to have very wide applicability, in areas as diverse as industrial process control and electronic commerce. This module will begin by introducing the student to the notion of an agent, and will lead them to an understanding of what an agent is, how they can be constructed, and how agents can be made to co-operate effectively with one another to solve problems.

As more complex computational systems are used within critical applications, it is becoming essential that these systems are formally specified. Such specifications are used to give a precise and unambiguous description of the required system. In addition, as computational systems become more complex in general, formal specification can allow us to define the key characteristics of systems in a clear way and so help the development process. Formal specifications provide the basis for verification of properties of systems. While there are a number of ways in which this can be achieved, the model-checking approach is a practical and popular way to verify the temporal properties of finite-state systems. Indeed, such temporal verification is widely used within the design of critical parts of integrated circuits, has recently been used to verify parts of the control mechanism for one of NASA’s space probes, and is now beginning to be used to verify general Java programs.

This module will introduce: the principles of standard formal methods, such as Z; the basic notions of temporal logic and its use in relation to reactive systems; the use of model checking techniques in the verification of reactive systems.

In this module we discuss a number of topic that are important for e-commerce. These include game-theoretic discussions of auctions, technical and organisational discussions about cryptography and security, and the legal and moral issues related to privacy.

A broad range of topics are covered. Case studies and example tutorials emphasise the practical aspects of digital control design and optimisation.​

This module is aimed at developing the basic framework for signal processing and to demonstrate its applications. Also, the module provides students with a good understanding of the types, behaviours and design of FIR and IIR digital filters.

Teaching and learning are provided through a variety of means like formal lectures, problem sheets, supplementary questions, along with formative and summative online tests (through CANVAS, the electronic VLE system).

Assessment is carried out by means of two assignments and final (written) exam.