Communication Systems

(ECEg4271)

By: H/MARYAM G.

Yekatit 15, 2014 E.C.

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Course objectives & competences to be acquired
▶ To introduce students to digital communication systems and its application
areas.
▶ To understand information theory and coding.
▶ To enable students to analyze the performance of receivers in the presence
of noise and to design optimum receivers.
▶ To realize MIMO and OFDM communication systems.
▶ To introduce students to the recent multiple access scheme, NOMA com-
munication system.

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 CHAPTER I
Review of Digital Communication Systems
▶ Introduction
▶ Analog versus Digital Communication
▶ Baseband and Broadband Transmission
▶ Shannon Capacity Theorem
▶ Major Designing Issues in Communication Systems

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Introduction
▶ In a broad sense, the term communications refers to the sending, receiving
and processing of information by electronic means.
▶ Communications started with wire telegraphy in the eighteen forties, de-
veloping with telephony some decades later and radio at the beginning of
this century.
▶ Radio communication, made possible by the invention of the triode tube,
was greatly improved during World War II.
▶ It subsequently became even more widely used and refined through the
invention and use of the transistor, integrated circuits and other semi-
conductor devices.
▶ More recently, the use of satellites and fiber optics has made commu-
nications even more widespread, with an increasing emphasis on computer
and other data communications.
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Introduction
▶ A modern communications system is first concerned with the sorting, pro-
cessing and sometimes storing of information before its transmission.
▶ The actual transmission then follows, with further processing and the
filtering of noise.
▶ Finally we have reception, which may include processing steps such as
decoding, storage and interpretation.

Figure 1: Elements of a communication system.

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Introduction
▶ Sources: It can be classified as electric or non-electric; they are the origins
of a message or input signal. for e.g. Human voice, Audio files (MP3, WAV,
etc...), Graphic Image Files (GIFs), Email Messages, Television Picture,
Electromagnetic radiation.
▶ Input Transducers: Sensors, like microphones and cameras, capture non-
electric sources, like sound and light (respectively), and convert them into
electrical signals. These types of sensors are called input transducers in
modern analog and digital communication systems.
▶ Without input transducers there would not be an effective way to transport
non-electric sources or signals over great distances, i.e. humans would
have to rely solely on our eyes and ears to see and hear things despite
the distances. Other examples of input transducers include: Microphones,
Cameras, Keyboards, Mouse, Force sensors, Accelerators.
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Introduction
▶ Transmitter: It is a collection of electronic components & circuits designed
to converts the message signal produced by a source of information into
a form suitable for transmission over the channel. In order to do this, the
signal must pass through: Noise filter, A/D converter, Encoder, Modulator
and Signal amplifier.
▶ Channel: It is simply referring to the medium by which a signal travels.
However, in the course of transmission over the channel, the signal is dis-
torted due to channel imperfections. There are two types of media by which
electrical signals travel, i.e. guided (optical fiber, coaxial cables, telephone
wire, twisted-pairs) and unguided (radio or RF communication).
▶ Receiver: It is a collection of electronic components & circuits that accepts
the transmitted message from the channel and converts it back to a form
understandable by humans. It consists of Noise filter, D/A converter, De-
coder, Demodulator and Signal amplifier.
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Introduction
▶ Output Transducer:The output transducer simply converts the electric sig-
nal (created by the input transducer) back into its original form. Examples
of output transducers include Speakers (Audio), Monitors (See Computer
Peripherals), Motors (Movement), Lighting (Visual).
▶ Some common pairs of input and output transducers include:
• Microphones and speakers (audio signals)
• Keyboards and computer monitors
• Cameras and liquid crystal displays (LCDs)
• Force sensors (buttons) and lights or motors
▶ Again, input transducers convert non-electric signals like voice into electric
signals that can be transmitted over great distances very quickly. Output
transducers convert the electric signal back into sound or picture, etc...
There are many different types of transducers and the combinations are
limitless.
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Introduction

Figure 2: A general model of all communication systems.

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Introduction
▶ Attenuation: is a signal power degradation which exists in all media of
wireless transmission and it is proportional to the square of the distance
between the transmitter and receiver.
▶ Interference: electrical interference occurs when information signals from
one source produces frequencies that fall outside their allocated bandwidth
and interfere with information signal from another source. Most occurs in
the radio frequency spectrum.
▶ Noise: Generally it is random, undesirable electronic energy that enters the
communication system via the communicating medium and interferes with
the transmitted message.
▶ Moreover, noise and interfering signals (originating from other sources) are
added to the channel output, with the result that the received signal is a
corrupted version of the transmitted signal.
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Analog vs Digital Communication
▶ Typically, in the design of a communication system the information source,
communication channel, and information sink (end user) are all specified.
▶ The challenge is to design the transmitter and the receiver with the follow-
ing guidelines in mind:
• Encode/modulate the message signal generated by the source of information,
transmit it over the channel, and produce an ”estimate” of it at the receiver
output that satisfies the requirements of the end user.
• All of this needs efficient designing at an affordable cost.
▶ We have the option of using a digital or analog communication system.
▶ A digital communication system represented by the block diagram of Fig.
3, the functional blocks of the transmitter and the receiver, starting from
the far end of the channel, are paired as: Source encoder-decoder ,
Channel encoder-decoder , Modulator-demodulator .

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Analog vs Digital Communication

Figure 3: Block diagram of digital communication system.

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Analog vs Digital Communication
▶ The source encoder removes redundant information from the message
signal and is responsible for the efficient use of the channel. The resulting
sequence of symbols is called the source code word.
▶ The data stream is processed next by the channel encoder, which pro-
duces a new sequence of symbols called the channel code word. The
channel code word is longer than the source code word by virtue of the
controlled redundancy built into its construction.
▶ Finally, the modulator represents each symbol of the channel code word
by a corresponding analog symbol, appropriately selected from a finite set
of possible analog symbols.
▶ The sequence of analog symbols produced by the modulator is called a
waveform, which is suitable for transmission over the channel.

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Analog vs Digital Communication
▶ The demodulator processes the channel corrupted transmitted waveform
and reduces the waveform to the sequence of numbers that represents
estimates of the transmitted data symbols (called estimate of channel
code word).
▶ An estimated channel code word then passed through the channel de-
coder which attempts to reconstruct the original information sequence
from the knowledge of the code used by the channel encoder and the re-
dundancy contained in the received data.
▶ Note: The average probability of a bit error at the output of the decoder
is a measure of the performance of the demodulator–decoder combination.
▶ At the end, source decoder tries to decode the sequence from the knowl-
edge of the encoding algorithm. And which results in the approximate
replica of the input at the transmitter end.
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Analog vs Digital Communication
▶ At the receiver, the channel output (received signal) is processed in re-
verse order to that in the transmitter, thereby reconstructing a recognizable
version of the original message signal. The estimated message signal is
finally delivered to the user of information at the destination.
▶ The design of a digital communication system is rather complex in con-
ceptual terms but easy to build. Moreover, the system is robust, offering
greater tolerance of physical effects (e.g., temperature variations, aging,
mechanical vibrations) than its analog counterpart.
▶ In contrast, the design of an analog communication system is simple in
conceptual terms but difficult to build because of stringent requirements
on linearity and system adjustment.

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Analog vs Digital Communication
▶ The conceptual simplicity of analog communications is due to the fact that
analog modulation techniques, exemplified by their wide use in radio and
television, make relatively superficial changes to the message signal in order
to prepare it for transmission over the channel.
▶ More specifically, there is no significant effort made by the system designer
to tailor the waveform of the transmitted signal to suit the channel at any
deeper level.
▶ Analog devices and circuits have a natural affinity for operating at very
high speeds and they consume very little power compared to their digital
counterparts.
▶ Accordingly, the implementation of very high-speed or very low-power com-
munication systems dictates the use of an analog approach.

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Analog vs Digital Communication
▶ However, in digital communication systems, once the appropriate set of
waveforms for transmission over the channel has been selected, the source
information can be encoded into the channel waveforms, and the efficient
transmission of information from the source to the user is thereby ensured.
▶ In summary, the use of digital communications provides the capability for
information transmission that is both efficient and reliable.
▶ Obviously, the use of digital communications requires a considerable amount
of electronić circuitry, but nowadays electronics are inexpensive, due to the
ever-increasing availability of very-large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuits in
the form of silicon chips.
▶ Thus although cost considerations used to be a factor in selecting analog
communications over digital communications in the past, that is no longer
the case.
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Shannon Capacity Theorem
▶ The goal of a communication system designer is to configure a system that
transports a message signal from a source of interest across a noisy channel
to a user at the other end of the channel with the following objective:
• The message signal is delivered to the user both efficiently and reliably, subject to
certain design constraints: allowable transmit power, available channel bandwidth,
and affordable cost of building the system.
▶ In the case of a digital communication system, reliability is commonly ex-
pressed in terms of bit error rate (BER) or probability of bit error measured
at the receiver output. Clearly, the smaller the BER, the more reliable the
communication system is.
▶ A question that comes to mind in this context is whether it is possible to
design a communication system that operates with zero BER even through
the channel is noisy.

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Shannon Capacity Theorem
▶ In an ideal setting, the answer to this question is an emphatic yes. The
answer is embodied in one of Shannon’s celebrated theorems, which is
called the information capacity theorem.
▶ Let B denote the channel bandwidth, and let SNR denote the received
signal-to-noise ratio. The information capacity theorem states that ideally
these two parameters are related as:

C = B log2 (1 + SNR) (1)

where C is the information capacity of the channel (bits/second).

▶ The information capacity is defined as the maximum rate at which infor-
mation can be transmitted across the channel without error; it is measured
in bits per second (b/s).
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Shannon Capacity Theorem
▶ For a prescribed channel bandwidth B and received SNR, the information
capacity theorem tells us that a message signal can be transmitted through
the system without error even when the channel is noisy, provided that the
actual signaling rate R in bits per second, at which data are transmitted
through the channel, is less than the information capacity C.
▶ Unfortunately, Shannon’s information capacity theorem does not tell us
how to design the system.
▶ Nevertheless, from a design point of view, equation (1) provides a basis
for the trade-off between channel bandwidth B and received SNR. In par-
ticular, for a prescribed signaling rate R, we may reduce the required SNR
by increasing the channel bandwidth B, hence the motivation for using a
wideband modulated scheme (e.g., pulse-code modulation) for improved
noise performance.
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Shannon Capacity Theorem
▶ Example 1: For a standard telephone circuit with a signal-to-noise ratio
of 1000 and a bandwidth of 2.7 kHz, determine the Shannon limit for
information capacity.
▶ Example 2: Suppose a noise free channel uses spectrum between 3 MHz
and 4 MHz, with SNRdB = 24dB. What is the maximum achievable data
rate?

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Baseband vs Broadband Transmission
▶ The baseband is a type of signal which has a frequency range near to zero.
▶ The baseband signals are used for transmitting the signals in the telecom-
munication world without using the modulation that means no alteration
in the frequency of a signal.
▶ The bandwidth of the baseband signal is near to zero. The other name of
baseband is the low-pass transmission.
▶ Baseband information can be sent directly and unmodified over the medium
or can be used to modulate a carrier for transmission over the medium.
▶ In telephone or intercom systems, the voice is placed on the wires and
transmitted.
▶ In some computer networks, the digital signals are applied directly to coaxial
or twisted-pair cables for transmission.
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Baseband vs Broadband Transmission

Figure 4: Technical differences between the baseband and broadband transmissions.

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Baseband vs Broadband Transmission
▶ Broadband is another type of signal with width bandwidth used for trans-
mitting multiple signals simultaneously and can be used to transmit differ-
ent traffic types.
▶ The broadband use fiber optical, twisted pair as the transmission medium
for transmitting the signals.
▶ The other difference between broadband transmission and baseband trans-
mission in the direction of signals transmitted.
▶ In the baseband transmission, the signals can be transmitted in both di-
rections at the same time. In broadband transmission, the signals can be
transmitted in a single direction. The baseband transmission uses digital
signaling for transmitting the signals.

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 Distinction b/n Baseband and Broadband Transmission
Baseband Transmission Broadband Transmission
▶ In baseband txn, the type of signalling ▶ In broadband txn, the type of sig-
used is digital. FDM not possible. nalling used is analog. FDM possible.
▶ It is bidirectional in nature. ▶ It is unidirectional in nature.
▶ Used for short distance communication. ▶ Used for long distance communication
▶ It works well with bus topology. without being attenuated.
▶ Manchester and Differential Manchester ▶ It is used with a bus & tree topology.
encoding are used. ▶ Only PSK encoding is used.
▶ Baseband txn have 50 Ω impedance. ▶ Broadband txn have 70 Ω impedance.
▶ It is easy to install and maintain. ▶ It is difficult to install and maintain.
▶ This txn is cheaper to design. ▶ This txn is expensive to design.
▶ E.g. Ethernet in LAN networks. ▶ E.g. Cable TV, Walkie Talkies.

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Major Designing Issues in Communication Systems
▶ A channel is a physical medium that behaves practically like an imperfect
filter that generally attenuates the signal and distorts the transmitted wave-
forms.
▶ The channel attenuation depends on the distance the signals must travel
between the transmitter and the receiver, varying from mild to severe.
▶ Generally, designing of modern digital communication system needs atten-
tion on the following issues.
• Selection of the information–bearing waveform;
• Bandwidth and power of the waveform;
• Effect of system noise on the received information;
• Cost of the system.

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Major Designing Issues in Communication Systems
▶ NB: In practical communication systems, the channel distorts the signal,
and noise accumulates along the path. Worse yet, the signal strength at-
tenuates while the noise level remains steady regardless of the distance from
the transmitter. Thus, the signal quality would continuously degrade along
the length of the channel. Amplification of the received signal to make up
for the attenuation is ineffective because the noise will be amplified by the
same proportion, and the quality remains, at best, unchanged. These are
the key challenges that we must face in designing modern communication
systems.

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 Any Questions?
END

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