The courses can also be delivered on customer sites. Contact Prof. Boucouvalas for details.

Courses	Delivery Date
Introduction to Fibre Optics
Introduction to Optical Fibre Amplifiers
Fibre Optic Components
Optical Wireless Communications

This two day course is designed for engineers, or technical staff who may be considering embarking on a fibre optic project and have little or no previous experience or knowledge of the potential benefits advantages and limitations of fibre optics in transmission systems. It is also valuable for project managers who need to have basic knowledge of this particular transmission medium in order to be able to facilitate communication with their technical staff and to get help in taking technical decisions. It also provides a useful grounding for new sales and marketing employees of companies involved directly or indirectly in this technology.

Finally to anybody who is interested in furthering their education, old graduates who would like to update their knowledge about this technological breakthrough which significantly contributes to the communication revolution we are all experiencing.

· Understand the basic principles of light propagation in optical fibres
· Know the various types of optical fibres, their use as a transmission medium, how to launch light in them, connect, and specify them.
· Understand the basic principles of light sources and detectors and their choice and use as transmitters and receivers in the design of fibre optic communication systems.
· Understand the advantages in fibre optic communication systems and select and specify suitable systems for application.
· Design basic optical fibre communication systems and appreciate future trends

1. Introduction:
2. Optical Fibres.
2.1 Properties of light.
2.2 Basic principles of optical fibre waveguides.

3. Fabrication of optical fibres.
4. Cable design.
5. Using optical fibres and fibre components.
6. Sources.
7. Detectors.

8. Optical Fibre Communications.
9. Basic Digital Fibre Optic Communications.
10. Basic Analogue Fibre Optic Communications.
11. Wavelength Division Multiplexing systems.
12. Case Studies.
References:
Appendices:

Introduction to Optical Fibre Amplifiers

Who should attend
This one day course is designed for engineers, or technical staff, sales and marketing personnel who may be considering embarking on a communications or instrumentation project with little or no previous experience or knowledge of fibre optic amplification. Although the course assumes no prior knowledge on the topic, however basic knowledge of fibre optic principles would be advantageous.
It is also valuable to project managers who may need to further their knowledge on the potential of this technology in order to be able to facilitate technical discussions with their technical staff and for decisions on various projects.

· Understand the basic principles of operation of fibre optical amplifiers.
· Know the important parameters for specifying optical amplifiers.
· To design of optical communication systems using optical amplifiers.
· To use of optical amplifiers for instrumentation.
· Appreciate market trends and latest developments.

1. Introduction:
2. Fabrication of Rare Earth Doped Fibres
3. Absorption/Fluorescent
4. Gain Mechanism
5. Choice of pump wavelength
6. Amplifiers and properties
7. Noise Mechanisms
8. Characterisation
9. Other fibre Amplifiers
10. Comparison with semiconductor amplifiers
11. Application of amplifiers in fibre optic communication systems, networks and instrumentation.
12. Market and technology trends

This one day course provides a useful grounding for scientists, engineers, technical staff, sales and marketing personnel who may be considering embarking on a communications or instrumentation project with little or no previous experience or knowledge of fibre optic components. Although the course assumes no prior knowledge on the topic, however basic knowledge of fibre optic principles would be advantageous.
It is valuable also for project managers who need to further their knowledge on the operation, or the potential applications and limitations of fibre optic components.

· Understand the basic principles, fabrication and operation of fibre components.
· Know the important parameters for specifying components.
· To design of optical communication systems using optical fibre components.
· State of the art components.
· Market potential.

1. Why fibre optic components.
2. Principles of couplers and fused biconical techniques.
3.WDM components.
4. Optical fibre filters.
5. Isolators.
6. Switches.
7. Fibre Optic Amplifiers.
8. Circulators and other components
9. Fibre optic systems using fibre optic components
10. Market and technology trends

This two day course is designed for engineers, or technical staff, sales and marketing personnel who may be considering embarking on an optical wireless communications project with little or no previous experience or knowledge of the principles and issues of optical wireless links. Although the course assumes no prior knowledge on the topic, however basic knowledge of optical communications principles would be advantageous.

It is valuable also for project managers who need to further their knowledge on the potential of this technology in order to be able to facilitate communication with their technical staff as well as to be able to take decisions on various projects.

· Understand the basic principles operation of optical wireless links.
· Appreciate the advantages and limitations of such links.
· To understand the design choices and design calculations.
· To understand the performance of IRDA optical links.
· Appreciate market trends and latest developments.

1. Introduction.
2. Free Space as a transmission channel.
3. LED and Lasers as sources.
4. Beamforming of the optical radiation.
5. Photodiodes and receivers.
6. Ambient noise.
7. Encoding for optical wireless.
8. Low cost optical link design and limitations.
9. UART and SDLC based links.
10. Error detection and probability of undetected errors.
11. IRDA user model optical wireless links.
12. Eye Safety Issues.
13. IRDA IrLAP Link layer Protocol Performance.
14. High speed links.
15. Real time traffic over optical wireless issues.
16. IEEE 803.11 optical wireless user model.
17. Market and technology trends.