Information theory constitutes the theoretical foundation of all kinds of modern digital communication systems. By means of information theoretic metrics it is, e.g., possible to quantify the amount of information that is present in a signal (measured by the signal's entropy) or the amount of information that can be carried by a transmission system (measured by the channel capacity). These metrics allow us to investigate the fundamental limitations of various models of information transmission and storage systems, which can then be considered as benchmarks for any real-world implementations of such systems. However, such abstract information theoretic models are not only a valuable tool for theoretic analyses. They can also be used as a basis for developing optimization algorithms which can then be transferred to more realistic models and finally to real-world systems. Thus, applied information theory has an intermediate position between mathematics, on the one hand, and the technical applications, on the other hand.

Applied information theory is used in the following fields of research at our institute:

• Interference-Limited Communication Systems
• Millimeter-Wave Communications
• Multi-User MIMO Communications

Lectures where aspects and examples from applied information theory play a role:

• MIMO Systems