ECE 533 Random Signals and Process

Course description in catalog

Provides the foundation needed to work with the random signals which are encountered in engineering. Concept of a random variable. Properties of one- and multi-dimensional random variables. Concept of a stochastic process. Characterization of random waveforms using power spectral density and the correlation function. Random signals in linear systems. Applications to engineering systems.

Topics covered

  • Probability theory: set definition, operations; joint and conditional probability; independent events; Bernoulli trials.
  • Random variable: definition; continuous, discrete, mixed random variables; distribution function; density function; Gaussian random variable; Binomial, Poisson, uniform, exponential, Rayleigh random variables; conditional distribution, conditional density function.
  • Functions of random variables: Y=g(X), Z=g(X,Y); determining their pdf's.
  • Introduction to estimation: expectation; moment; Chebyshev and Schwarz Inequalities; estimator for the mean and variance of the normal law.
  • Random vectors and parameter estimation: definition; joint distribution and densities; expectation vectors and covariance matrices; multidimensional Gaussian law; characteristic functions of random vectors; estimation of vector means and covariance matrices; maximum likelihood estimators;
  • Random process: basic definitions; important random processes; linear systems with random inputs; wide-sense stationarity; n-order and strict-sense stationarity; time average and ergodicity; Karhunen-Loeve Expansion.
  • Applications to statistical signal processing: Orthogonality and linear estimation; Kalman filtering; Expectation-Maximization algorithm; simulated annealing.