This is a Bachelor’s thesis and is a part of the study program Computer Science at the
University of Stavanger. The group decided to write this thesis about Wireless Commu-
nication, with a focus on the physical layer, because of the ever-greater popularity it has
achieved and how it is a part of our everyday lives. In order to showcase functionalities,
an emulator is a great compromise between simulation and experimentation. With the
help of such an emulator, this thesis will include various exercises spanning multiple
topics that can easily be expanded upon later.
After proposing exercises, the search for a suitable emulator started. Because many of
these programs are well developed and offer a great variety of functionalities, it leaves
them very costly to use. Thankfully, the University of Stavanger offers its students
a free license for a great emulator. After an extensive search and comparison for a
multi-functional emulator to use for our thesis, we concluded with MATLAB. To show
the different functionalities MATLAB offers, we have created multiple exercises that cover
several aspects of the physical layer. Some of these include Modulation, Antenna, and
Propagation. To highlight one outcome we discovered, in order to achieve a better and
more accurate transmission, it is not as easy as just increasing the number of antennas.
The group decided to start the thesis with less complicated exercises in the beginning, so
it will be easier to understand the exercises revolving around antenna later. This thesis
is written in a way where it is easy to implement different technologies and showcase
other functionalities later on. This is important because wireless communication never
stops developing and adapting, which means it will always be possible to have up-to-date
understandable information.