International Year One in Electronic Engineering

Academic English Skills

Academic English Skills aims to provide thorough training in the language and related academic skills which will enable international students to best achieve their academic potential at the Royal Holloway University London, and ensures you are able to meet the requirements of the UKVI through demonstrating an English language level of CEFR B2 in the skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking.

You will develop awareness and competency in a range of language-related skills required for successful study at Higher Education level. These skills include the processes of academic writing, effective and extensive reading strategies, effective participation in seminars and delivery of presentations, and listening to and recording information effectively from lectures. You will also develop the accuracy and range of written and spoken language required to use language effectively and appropriately, with clarity and confidence in an academic context.

Communications Engineering

This module will provide an introduction to both elementary and modern forms of Communication Engineering. The module will introduce you to the basic building blocks of modern communications systems. It will develop your skills in the basic theory and methods associated with Communication Engineering and will provide hands-on experience with communication devices and system hardware.

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to: summarise the fundamental concepts, principles and theories relevant to communications systems; explain the basic theory and operation of analogue and digital communication systems; describe the building blocks of a communication system; discuss the process of signal modulation and demodulation; design and execute experiments to investigate component, circuit or system behaviour and analyse and critically evaluate experimental results.

Creative Engineering Team Project

This module will provide guidance on creative engineering projects and provide you with the opportunity to work in groups to achieve a shared objective with reference to industrial practice. The lectures, laboratory sessions and workshops that this module offers will help you to cultivate the required skills for developing a professional team work attitude. Furthermore, lectures will expose you to global techniques used in solving critical engineering problems. You will also develop basic skills such as soldering and designing to specifications.

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to: identify problems of global concerns requiring creative engineering solutions and their appropriate solutions; recall the logic gates and how their responses can be modelled in practice using Boolean algebra, truth tables, De Morgan’s theorem and Karnaugh maps; describe the principles of managing engineering processes as a member of a team; explain concepts from different areas including non-engineering concepts and describe how to apply them in engineering projects; apply creativity and innovation in engineering practice together with team members to create solutions to defined problems and produce a final product prototype consistent with initial designs based on required specifications and user needs.

Electronic Circuits and Components

This module will introduce the concepts of electronic circuit modelling, by enhancing your knowledge of applications in electronic circuit design so that you will be able to design an electronic system to meet an industrial specification. The course aim is to introduce concepts and analytical tools for predicting the behaviour of combinations of passive circuit elements in conjunction with active electronic components; diodes, transistors and operational amplifiers and the circuits in which these devices are used.

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to: identify and describe the scientific principles, construction, characteristics of electronic components, and their functions in electronic circuits; select appropriate components for electronic circuit design, building, and testing; explain the limitations of electronic components and how these can be overcome by design or the appropriate choice of device; apply circuit theory and modelling techniques to the design and analysis of electronic circuits; select and use relevant materials and equipment to determine the most appropriate technology for a given application and analyse the behaviour of simple analogue electronic circuits, and calculate the main parameters.

Internet Services

The course introduces the basics of how the Internet works and its key protocols. With that foundation, it then addresses the technologies used for web development, including scripting languages and their potential. Web Services and related technologies are also introduced as well as the basics of network security. The module takes a systematic view of the computer networks instead of a hardware/electronics approach.

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to: explain the principles and methods of network security, Cryptography, Encapsulation, Digital Signatures, and Public Key Encryption; explain key protocols and describe why protocols are important in communication of computers; identify the three layers of the web, and describe how the internet and its key protocols work; recognise how the three key technologies of HTML, CSS and JavaScript cooperate to provide the client side of web services and identify professional, moral and ethical aspects of the use of computer-based systems, and ability to recognise any risks or safety aspects in a given context.

Mathematics for Engineers 1

This module will introduce you to some of the fundamental mathematics and techniques relevant to undergraduate engineering, and develop students’ understanding of the main concepts in mathematics, their application in various situations as well as support the enhancement of problem-solving skills.

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to: outline the properties and sketch the graphs of basic mathematical functions; develop the skills in expressing word problems in mathematical language; solve basic mathematical operations involving vectors, geometry and matrices; perform differentiation and integration of functions with one or more variables; use algebraic and trigonometric processes to derive and manipulate functions and equations and apply statistics and common probability distributions to estimate the reliability of data.

Mathematics for Engineers 2

The module will continue the development of your understanding of the main mathematical concepts that will prepare you for your chosen degree programme. It will develop your skills in applying these concepts in various situations as well as support the enhancement of problem-solving skills. The course will introduce you to the fundamental mathematics and techniques, help you to develop an analytical approach to derivation of mathematical functions and expressions and equip you with mathematical skills used for solving engineering problems.

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to: outline and define appropriate key mathematical concepts relevant to specific problems; describe the basic coordinate systems and plot graphs of points and functions; provide solutions to mathematical problems involving more than one variable; manipulate the mechanics of vector differential operators and explain the underlying physical meaning; solve problems involving matrices and eigenvalues and apply Fourier series to expand periodic signals.

Programming in C++

This module will provide you with fundamental knowledge of programming in C++. The lectures and laboratory sessions that this module offers will expose you to number representation in computing, types and use of variables, writing, compiling, executing and debugging C++ codes. Furthermore, this module will explain the importance and use of object-oriented programming.

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to: recognise the syntax, variables and operators used in C++ programming language; identify C++ statements and declarations used in object oriented programming; list the advantages of object oriented programming and distinguish between procedural and object oriented language; write object oriented programs that solve real-world problems; employ the use of program flow control, functions, arrays and classes for efficient C++ programming and appreciate the difference between programming for dynamic memory allocation at run time and for static memory allocation at compilation time.