Deep Learning Applications in Communications (DLACOM)

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are currently considered as the most important universal technology of our era, like electricity and the combustion engine; their applications now extend into almost every industry and research domain. Particularly deep learning has led to many recent breakthroughs in various domains, such as computer vision, natural language processing, and speech recognition. The goal of this course is to introduce key concepts of deep learning which will be exemplified with applications in communications, such as an entirely neural network-based communications system that does not use any traditional algorithm. For now, deep learning for communications is a novel field that offers many attractive interdisciplinary research questions at the interface between machine learning, communications engineering, and information theory. The course is hence a great opportunity to learn about the cutting-edge research in communications and deep learning. A strong focus is put on practical implementation with state-of-the-art deep learning libraries and each lecture will be accompanied by a Jupyter notebook with code examples.

1. Introduction (JH)
" Hype around artificial intelligence and deep learning
" Some historical remarks
" Role of machine learning for future communications systems
" Course environment: Git, Docker, Jupyter
2. A Primer on Deep Learning (JH)
" Neural networks
" Universal approximation theorem & Approximation and estimation bound
" Backpropagation
" Stochastic gradient descent
" Gradient descent optimization algorithms
" Capacity, overfitting, and underfitting
" Regularization
3. Introduction to Python and Tensorflow (SD&SC)
4. Deep learning-based User Localization (SD)
5. Convolutional Neural Networks: Modulation Classification (JH)
6. Deep Unfolding: Neural Belief Propagation (SC)
7. Recurrent neural networks: Decoding of Convolutional Codes (StB)
8. Residual Nets: Deep MIMO Detection (JH)
9. Autoencoders: Learning to Communicate (SC)
10. Using neural networks in Software-defined Radio (SD)
11. Generative Adversarial Networks: Channel Modeling (SD)
12. Open Ends, Summary and Outlook (JH)