Master of Science in Computer Engineering
About This Programme
The MSCPE program was introduced to provide advanced and specialized education in computer engineering for practicing engineers, researchers and professionals working in academia and industry. It was established to provide an opportunity for practicing engineers to advance their careers. The programs provide sufficient breadth and depth of knowledge to satisfy the requirements of the national and international accreditation bodies, and thus allowing our graduates the opportunity to practice different computer engineering topics. The MSCPE program also contributes towards the development of advanced computer engineering research in UAE. In order to compete in the highly competitive industrial world of today, it is not enough to transfer knowledge and technology from outside, but it is also necessary to grow and promote research using local talent.
Course Highlights
- 33 credit hours
- Taught in English
- College of Computing and Informatics
- Study system: Courses and Theses
- Full-time and part-time study
- AED 3,200 per credit hour
What You'll Study
Program Requirements Compulsory courses (9 credit hours) Elective Courses (15 credit hours) Thesis or Project (9 credit hours) Students must complete 12 hours of course credits before registering the thesis. Graduation Requirements Before graduation, student should complete all graduation requirements that include: • Completing successfully all courses of the program. • Completing successfully the thesis and/or essays as specified in the curriculum. • Obtaining a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. • Publishing a paper in the student's specialization in a refereed journal or a conference proceedings provided that the student is the main author of the paper to be reviewed by two independent reviewers.
Year 1, Fall semester
9 credit hours
1502503 / 0402500Applied Mathematics for Engineering3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad Standing
This course covers solution of linear equations, Eigenvalue eigenvector decomposition, Special functions, Complex analysis, Fourier analysis, Laplace transform, Introduction to partial differential equations. The course deals with various examples from engineering disciplines.
1502501 / 0402501Engineering Research Methodologies3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad Standing
This course covers students learning activity on how to apply the engineering research process and methods of inquiry to solve engineering problems; doing literature review in the areas of interest, this involves critiquing current research work. Students learn legal and ethical issues related to protecting and exploiting research, more specifically, intellectual Property rights. They will also learn how to communicate findings in specific engineering formats to specialist audiences. Students will learn basic project management and teamwork skills in addition to research ethics. Course project will allow the students to apply research methodology components on research problems of their choice. Students are expected to present and defend their research proposals.
- Elective 13 credits
Year 1, Spring semester
9 credit hours
1502502 / 0402502Optimization Methods in Engineering3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad Standing
The course deals with formulation, solution and implementation of optimization models such as linear programming, dynamic programming, integer programming, quadratic programming, convex programming, geometric programming and unconstrained optimization for analyzing complex systems problems in industry.
- Elective 23 credits
- Elective 33 credits
Year 2, Fall semester
9 credit hours
- Elective 43 credits
- Elective 53 credits
1502590Graduate Seminar0 credits
Prerequisite: Grad Standing
Students are required to attend seminars given by faculty members, visitors, and fellow graduate students. Each student is also required to present a seminar outlying the research topic of the master thesis.
1502599Master Thesis3 credits
Prerequisite: Grad Standing
The student has to undertake and complete research topic under the supervision of a faculty member. The thesis work should provide the student with an in-depth understanding of a research problem in computer engineering. It is expected that the student, under the guidance of the supervisor, will be able to conduct research somewhat independently, and may also be able to provide solution to that problem.
Semester sequence from the study plan document linked on the page. The page's own semester table places Elective 5 in the second year's Spring semester, alongside 6 credits of Master Thesis, and prints 9 as this semester's total although the courses it lists here add up to 6. The course descriptions print (3-0:3) for every course, including the 0-credit Graduate Seminar and the 9-credit Master Thesis.
Year 2, Spring semester
6 credit hours (programme total: 33) * Student must have completed all courses (compulsory and electives) before the semester in which the MSc thesis is defended.
1502599Master Thesis6 credits
Prerequisite: Grad Standing
Elective Courses (15 credit hours)
The study plan schedules five electives from this list.
1502504Modeling and Simulation3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
Elements of modeling and simulation, Simulation techniques, Review of probability theory basics, Discrete-event simulations, Design of simulation models, Generation of pseudo random numbers, Testing Random Number Generators (RNG), Random variates generation, Commonly used distributions in modeling & simulation, Statistical analysis of the output of simulations, Verification and Validation, Simulation languages and Packages, Applications of modeling and simulation to computer science and engineering. A term paper and a final project are required from each student.
1502509Special Topics in Computer Engineering3 credits
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
1502520Computer Architecture3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This course covers the fundamentals of computer design, Instruction set design principal Pipelining, Instruction-Level Parallelism, Dynamic Scheduling Multi-processor, Thread-level Parallelism, Memory-Hierarchy Design, Virtual memory, Buses, I/O and RAIDs.
1502522Distributed Systems and Cloud Computing3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This course covers Parallel algorithms, Multi-processing, Process level multiprocessors, interconnection, and processing elements, Task partitioning & allocation, Inter-process communication, Message passing protocols, Performance evaluation measures, Scalability and maintainability, Proto-types & commercial distributed systems, Cloud Computing & Virtualization concepts, Cloud architecture & Components, Cloud infrastructure, Cloud Services, Cloud Controllers, User interface & Cloud Dashboard, OS images, Cloud Data Storage and Management.
1502525Reconfigurable Computing3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
The course reviews the main components of the VHDL, introduces the reconfigurable architecture such as FPGAs, explains how to use the IP cores to implement the reconfigurable Computing applications. In addition to reconfigurable case studies.
1502530Real-time Embedded Systems3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
The course covers the architecture of real time embedded systems, design and construction of instruction set of embedded system, selected case study: Design software/hardware of MIPS processor, and the task scheduling algorithms.
1502534 / 0402535Neural Networks and Applications3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This course includes introduction, background and biological inspiration. The course covers survey of fundamental methods of artificial neural networks: single and multi-layer networks; perceptions and back propagation. The course deals with associative memory and statistical networks, supervised and unsupervised learning, merits and limitations of neural networks, and applications.
1502539Special Topics in Computer Applications3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
Advanced and emerging topics are selected from the area of Computer Applications. Contents of the course will be provided one semester before it is offered.
1502540Computer Networks3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This is a first, graduate-level course in computer and communication networks. The course focuses on network mechanisms, such as error-control, routing, subnetting, congestion control, and resource allocation. The course covers also aspects of network protocols and technologies, such as Ethernet, WiFi, IP, TCP and UDP. Fundamental concepts of network delay and delay-bandwidth-product calculations will be covered. In addition, the general concept of packet switch architectures will also be covered.
1502543Network Security and Cryptography3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This course covers theory and practice of cryptographic techniques used in computer security. Topics include Encryption (secret-key and public-key) and privacy, Secure authentication, Cloud Security and Electronic commerce, Key management, Cryptographic hashing and data integrity (Digital signatures), Internet voting and Trust systems, Blockchains and Zero-knowledge protocols.
1502549Special Topics in Computer Networks3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This course covers advanced topics in Computer Networks. The contents will vary depending on the selected topics in the computer network research field.
1502550 / 0402554Integrated Circuit Fundamentals3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This course covers basic integrated circuit design & process technology, Design of simple analog & digital IC components in Bipolar & MOS technology. Modeling & simulation of integrated circuits, SPICE simulation, Fundamentals of Photo-lithography, Basic integrated circuit layout techniques, Applications & types of IC chips.
1502554 / 0402551Analog IC Design3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
The course serves as an advanced course for electronics students in analog integrated circuits (IC) design. The course will focus on conventional and modern analog building blocks for analog signal processing in BJT and MOS technology both in continuous time and discrete time applications. The course include analog multipliers, the op-amp applications in active filters, op-amp non-idealities, Nonlinearity cancellation of the MOS transistors, MOS-C Continuous time filters, Switched-C Circuits, and High frequency analog blocks ( ex: Current Conveyors and current feedback amplifiers).
1502559Special Topics in Microelectronics and VLSI3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
Advanced and emerging topics are selected from the area of Microelectronics and VLSI Contents of the course will be provided one semester before it is offered.
1502560Security of E-Services3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This course covers security aspects of electronic systems and wireless networks. Topics include e-commerce, e-government, e-services, biometrics-based security, wireless networks security, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), intrusion detection systems, and computer network security risk management. A refresher of fundamentals of e-security concepts including e-security tools, like Public key cryptosystems, and trust management systems. A term paper and a final project are required from each student.
1502562Security Attacks and Defenses3 credits
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
1502563Hardware Security3 credits
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
1502575Independent Studies in Computer Engineering3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
The student is expected to carry out an independent study on a current issue in a selected area of Computer Engineering. This study is to be supervised by a faculty member and requires the approval of the department. The student is required to produce a formal report, which will be evaluated by his instructor.
1502630Computational Intelligence and Knowledge Engineering3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This course covers concepts, design, implementation of computational intelligence involving integration of different methodologies: intelligent database management systems, rule-based systems, neural-type systems and fuzzy systems for heuristic problem solving, diagnostics, risk analysis and decision support; decision trees, reasoning techniques.
1502631 / 0402633Robotics3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This course deals with the modeling and control of open-chain serial manipulator and their basic applications. Topics include an overview of robotic systems, serial manipulator, forward kinematic, inverse kinematics, Jacobian and forward velocity kinematics, inverse velocity kinematics, motion control and trajectory design.
1502640 / 0402643Mobile Computing3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
The course includes: the convergence of wide-area wireless networking and mobile telephony to support ubiquitous access to information, anywhere, anyplace, and anytime. Topics include Mobile-IP, Ad-hoc networks, Local connectivity, 3G-wireless networks, Approaches to building mobile applications (e.g., mobile client/server, thin client, proxy architectures, and disconnected operation) and mobile e-commerce.
1502642 / 0402663Computer Vision3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This course covers image formation, image representation and display, image processing (smoothing, enhancement, edge detection, filtering), convolution, Gaussian masks, scale, space and edge detection, Feature extraction, Hough transforms, stereoscopic vision and perspective projection, motion, active contour models.
0402540Communication Systems Engineering3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This course covers the fundamental of communication system engineering. It provides an overview of probability and random processes, autocorrelation, spectral density and noise in linear systems. Additionally, it covers PAM and PCM systems, detection of binary and M-ary signals in Gaussian noise, matched filter and correlator receivers. Moreover, the course deals with error performance for binary and M-ary systems, pulse shaping, band pass modulation and demodulation techniques, channel capacity and other selected topics in digital communications.
0402543Information Theory3 credits (3-0:3)
Prerequisite: Grad. Standing
This course focuses on the fundamental limits on data compression, and on transmission over communication channels. The course topics include the information measures of entropy and mutual information, source coding theory, data compression, Huffman coding, Lempel-Ziv codes, arithmetic codes, the rate distortion theory, the channel capacity theory, and Gaussian channels.
The course description gives Neural Networks and Applications the cross-listed code 0402554, which the elective table gives to Integrated Circuit Fundamentals; the table's 0402535 is shown. The table's abbreviated titles are given in full as in the course descriptions.
What You'll Learn
Students should be able to: • Apply advanced theories and methodologies in the field of computer engineering. • Propose advanced engineering solutions with sustainability factors in global, economic, environmental, and societal context. • Communicate effectively in oral and written forms to present complex and diverse problems to professional audience. • Value the principles of professional ethics issues and develop fair and valid judgments in contemporary contexts. • Function on multidisciplinary teams with management and leadership capabilities. • Design and conduct experiments/simulation for research. • Use advanced engineering tools to analyze and interpret data.
Entry Requirements
Careers
Computer Engineers have become one of the key careers of current times. The anticipated program will emphasize various aspects of computer and related fields. Consequently, the graduates are expected to find jobs in sectors like network designers, digital systems designers, IT security officers, embedded integrated circuit designers, and software and web developers. In addition, the program acts like a bridging gap between pursing further education in academia.
Programme Details
Award
MSc
Start Date
Fall and Spring
Duration
2-4 Years
Qualification
MSc
Subject Area
Computer Science
Study Pattern
Full time / Part time