Introduction to Digital

Communication Systems
Tongtong Li
Department of ECE
Michigan State University

1
 Outline
• Components of a communication system
• Digital vs. analog communications
• SNR, bandwidth and channel capacity
• Purpose of this course – Building a digital
communications system

2
 Components of a
Communication System (1)

Figure 1: Communication Systems

3
 Components of a
Communication System (2)
• The source originates a message, which
could be a human voice, a television picture
or data. The source is converted by an input
transducer into an electrical waveform
referred to as the baseband signal or
message signal.

4
 Components of a
Communication System (3)
• The transmitter modifies the baseband signal for
efficient transmission. The transmitter generally
consists of one or more of the following
subsystems: a pre-emphasizer, a sampler, a
quantizer, a coder and a modulator.
• The channel is a medium through which the
transmitter output is sent, which could be a wire, a
coaxial cable, an optical fiber, or a radio link, etc.
Based on the channel type, modern
communication systems are divided into two
categories: wirelined communication systems
and wireless communication systems. 5
 Components of a
Communication System (4)
• The receiver reprocessed the signal received from
the channel by undoing the signal modifications
made at the transmitter and the channel. The task
of the receiver is to extract the message from the
distorted and noisy signal at the channel output.
The receiver may consist of a demodulator, a
decoder, a filter, and a de-emphasizer. The
receiver output is fed to the output transducer,
which converts the electrical signal to its original
form.

6
 Goal of this course
• When the signal is transmitted through the
channel, it is not only distorted by the
channel, but also contaminated/interfered by
noise. Transmitters and receivers are
carefully designed to overcome the
distortion and noise, the main purpose of
this course is to introduce the principles on
how to design efficient communication
systems.
7
 Digital vs. Analog Communications (1)
• Analog and Digital Signals
– Messages are digital or analog.
• Digital messages are constructed with a finite number of
symbols. For example, a text file is a digital message
constructed from 50 symbols, consists of 26 letters, 10
numbers, a space and several punctuation marks. Similarly, a
Morse-coded telegraph is a binary message, implying only two
symbols – mark and space.
• Analog messages are characterized by data whose values vary
over a continuous range. For example, a speech waveform has
amplitudes that vary over a continuous range. A picture is also
an analog message.

8
Noise immunity of digital signals

9
Digital vs. Analog Communications (2)
• Noise immunity of digital signals – digital data can be
recovered without any error as long as the distortion and noise
are within limits. On the other hand, for an analog message,
even a slight distortion or interference in the waveform will
cause an error in the received signal.
• Regenerative repeaters––Based on this “noise immunity”,
when transporting a bit stream over a long distance,
regenerative repeaters or repeater stations are placed along
the path of a digital system at distances short enough to ensure
that noise and distortion remain within a limit. The viability of
regenerative repeaters is the main reason for the
superiority of digital systems over analog ones.

10
 Interface of Analog and Digital Systems
-- A/D and D/A Conversion (1)

• Sampling Theorem A meeting ground exists for analog

and digital signals: conversion of analog signals to digital
signals. The backbone that supports the interface is
Shannon's Sampling Theorem, which states that if the
highest frequency in the signal spectrum is B(in hertz),
then the signal can be recovered from its samples,
taken at a rate not less than 2B samples per second.

11
 Interface of Analog and Digital Systems
-- A/D and D/A Conversion (2)

• Quantization each sample is approximated, or

round off to the nearest quantized level, the
information is thus digitalized. The quantized
signal is an approximation of the original one. We
can improve the accuracy of the quantized signal
to any desired degree by increasing the number of
levels L.

12
 Interface of Analog and Digital Systems
-- A/D and D/A Conversion (3)

• Pulse-code-modulation (PCM) -- the

scheme of transmitting data by digitizing
and then using pulse codes to transmit the
digitized data.
• Example: Multi-amplitude PCM vs. binary
PCM

13
 Interface of Analog and Digital Systems
-- A/D and D/A Conversion (4)
• During each sampling interval, we transmit one
quantized sample, which takes on one of the L
values. This requires L distinct waveforms, which
maybe constructed in two ways: Form L distinct
waveforms directly or use a combination of only
two basic pulsed. The later is the so called binary
case, where signaling is carried out by means of
only two basic pulses or symbols.

14
Figure 3: Multi-amplitude PCM
15
Figure 4: Binary PCM
16
 Interface of Analog and Digital Systems
-- A/D and D/A Conversion (5)
• Take L=16 as an example. One way to construct L
distinct waveforms is to use a rectangular pulse of
amplitude A/2 and its multiples, for instance,
±A/2, ±3A/2, ±5A/2, …, ±15A/2.
• As shown in Fig. 3. The second alternative is to
use combination of only two basic pulses, A/2, -
A/2. A sequence of four such pulses gives 16
distinct patterns, as can be seen in Fig. 4.

17
 Interface of Analog and Digital Systems
-- A/D and D/A Conversion (6)
• By increasing L, we can reduce the quantization
error to any desirable amount. At the same time,
because of the use regenerative repeaters, we can
transmit signals over a much longer distance than
would have been possible for the analog signal.
With modern data compression and transmission
technology, PCM transmission of analog signals
can be accomplished with less bandwidth than
the analog transmission of the same signal. This
is critical in wireless communication, since
bandwidth/radio spectrum is in short supply.
18
 Interface of Analog and Digital Systems
-- A/D and D/A Conversion (7)

• From all this discussion, we arrive at a

rather interesting conclusion: every
possible communication can be carried
on with a minimum of two symbols, i.e.,
by using a proper binary sequence. In the
last 20 years, digital communication
gradually replace its analog competitors,
and the revolution is now nearly complete.

19
 SNR, Bandwidth and Channel capacity (1)

• The fundamental parameters that control the rate

and quality of information transmission are the
channel bandwidth B and the signal power S.
• The bandwidth of a channel is the range of
frequencies that it can transmit with reasonable
fidelity. For example,if a channel can transmit
with fidelity a signal whose frequency components
occupy a range from 0(dc) up to a maximum of
5000 Hz, the channel bandwidth B is 5kHz.

20
 SNR, Bandwidth and Channel capacity (2)
• The rate of information transmission is directly
proportional to B. Consider the possibility of
increasing the speed of information transmission
by time compression of the signal. If a signal is
compressed in time by a factor of 2, it can be
transmitted in half the time, and the speed of
transmission is doubled. However, compression
by a factor of 2 causes the signal to “wiggled”
twice as fast, implying that the frequencies of its
components are doubled. To transmit this
compressed signal without distortion, the channel
bandwidth must also be doubled.
21
 SNR, Bandwidth and Channel capacity (3)

• The signal power S plays a dual role in

information transmission.
– First, S is related to the quality of transmission.
Increasing the signal power reduces the effect
of channel noise, and information is received
more accurately, or with less uncertainty. A
larger signal-to-noise(ratio) also allows
transmission over a longer distance. In any
event, a certain minimum SNR is necessary for
communication.
22
SNR, Bandwidth and Channel capacity (4)

– The second role of signal power is that S is

exchangeable with the bandwidth B; that is,
to maintain a given rate and accuracy of
information transmission, one can trade S
for B and vice versa. Rigorous proof will be
provided in this course later on and here we
only give a “plausible” argument.

23
 SNR, Bandwidth and Channel capacity (5)

• Consider the PCM scheme discussed earlier. Let

Eb stand for the energy of the basic pulse in the
baniary case. For the multiamplitude case, the
average pulse energy is
Es1 =
2
16
[Eb + 9 Eb + 25 Eb + ... + (16 − 1) 2 Eb ]
16 2 − 1
= Eb
3
• For the binary case, the average pulse energy is
simply 4Eb, the power is reduced by a factor of
255/12=21.25, but the required bandwidth is 4
times as great as that of the 16-ary case. 24
 SNR, Bandwidth and Channel capacity (6)

• In both cases, the minimum amplitude separation

between transmitted pulses is A, we therefore have
approximately the same error probability at the
receiver. We have demonstrated here the
exchangeability of S with B.
• In Conclusion, the two primary communication
resources are the bandwidth and the transmitted
power. In a given communication channel, one
source maybe more valuable than the other.
Hence, the communication systems should be
designed accordingly.
25
 SNR, Bandwidth and Channel capacity (7)

• For additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN)

channels, the limitation imposed on
communication by the channel bandwidth and the
SNR is highlighted by Shannon's equation,
c = B log 2 (1 + SNR ) bits / s
Here C is the rate of information transmission per
second, known as channel capacity.

26
 Source Channel Digital
Input
Encoder Encoder Modulator

Channel

Source Channel Digital

output
Decoder Decoder De-modulator

Figure 5: Digital communication system

27
 Building a Digital
Communications System (1)
• Source coding (data compression): the
process of efficiently converting the output
of a source into a sequence of binary digit.
• Channel coding The introduction of
redundancy in the information sequence for
the purpose of combating the effects of
noise and interference in the channel.

28
 Building a Digital
Communications System (2)
• Modulation A process that converts the digital
information sequences into waveforms that are
compatible with the characteristics of the channel.
• Channel estimation Generally, channels may
introduce distortion to the source signal, and the
characteristics of the channel/distortion need to be
estimated or identified at the receiver end, in order
to reduce or eliminate the distortion and recover
the original signal. This is called channel
estimation or identification.

29
 Building a Digital
Communications System (3)
• Equalization is the process to compensate
for the channel distortion. Very often,
equalizer is designed to minimize the ISI
and the noise jointly.

30
 Homework and Assignments
• Read Chapter 1.
• Page 9, problem 1-1.

31