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Spread Spectrum
Chapter 7

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What is Spread Spectrum?

• The increasing demand for wireless communications has problems
due to limited spectrum efficiency and multipath propagation.

• The use of spread spectrum communication has simplified these

problems.

• In the spread spectrum, signals from different sources are combined

to fit into larger bandwidth.

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Define spread spectrum

• Spread-spectrum techniques are methods by which a signal (e.g. an
electrical, electromagnetic, or acoustic signal) generated in a
particular bandwidth is deliberately spread in the frequency
domain, resulting in a signal with a wider bandwidth.

• These techniques are used for establishment of secure

communications, increasing resistance to natural interference and
jamming, to prevent detection, and to limit power flux density (e.g.
in satellite downlinks).

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Define spread spectrum

• In other words, "Spread Spectrum is a technique in which the
transmitted signals of specific frequencies are varied slightly to
obtain greater bandwidth as compared to initial bandwidth."

• Now, spread spectrum technology is widely used in radio signals

transmission because it can easily reduce noise and other signal
issues.

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• The spread code is a series of numbers that looks random but are
actually a pattern.

• The original bandwidth of the signal gets enlarged (spread) through

the spread code as shown in the figure.

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Principles of Spread Spectrum process:

1. To allow redundancy, it is necessary that the bandwidth allocated
to each station should be much larger than needed.
2.
3. The spreading process occurs after the signal is created by the
source.

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General Model of Spread Spectrum System

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Spread Spectrum System Criteria

• The following two criteria must be satisfied:

1. The transmitted signal must occupy a bandwidth much greater

than the bandwidth of the modulating signal (i.e. the input signal
to the system).
2. A special code (pseudo noise) is used for spectrum spreading and
the same code is to be used to despread the signal at the receiver.

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Characteristics of the Spread Spectrum are:

• Higher channel capacity.
• Ability to resist multipath propagation.
• They cannot easily intercept any unauthorized person.
• They are resistant to jamming.
• The spread spectrum provides immunity to distortion due to
multipath propagation.
• The spread spectrum offers multiple access capabilities.

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Reasons for use of spread spectrum systems

• There are three major reasons for the use of spread spectrum
techniques in communication systems today.
1. They aid privacy of the transmission, since the spectral density of the
spread spectrum may be less than the noise spectral density of the receiver.
2. The despreading process in the receiver will spread the spectra of
unwanted narrowband signals, thus improving interference rejection.
3. Spread spectrum signals are distributed over a wide range of frequencies
and then collected and received back to the receiver. On the other hand,
wide-band signals are noise-like and challenging to detect.
4. Initially, the spread spectrum was adopted in military applications because
of its resistance to jamming and difficulty intercepting.
5. Now, this is also used in commercial wireless communication.
6. It is most preferred because of its useful bandwidth utilization ability.
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Advantages of Spread Spectrum

1. Cross-talk elimination
2. Better output with data integrity
3. Reduced effect of multipath fading
4. Better security
5. Reduction in noise
6. Co-existence with other systems
7. Longer operative distances
8. Hard to detect
9. Not easy to demodulate/decode
10. Difficult to jam the signals
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Usage of Spread Spectrum

• There are many reasons to use this spread spectrum technique for
wireless communications. The following are some reasons:
• It can successfully establish a secure medium of communication.
• It can increase the resistance to natural interference, such as noise and
jamming, to prevent detection.
• It can limit the power flux density (e.g., in satellite down links).
• It can enable multiple-access communications.

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Two types of techniques for Spread Spectrum

are:
1. Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS)
2. Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS)

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Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS)

• Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) is a method of
transmitting radio signals by rapidly changing the carrier frequency
among many distinct frequencies occupying a large spectral band.
• The changes are controlled by a code known to both transmitter
and receiver.
• FHSS is used to avoid interference, to prevent eavesdropping, and
to enable code-division multiple access (CDMA) communications.

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…
• This is frequency hopping technique, where the users are made to
change the frequencies of usage, from one to another in a specified
time interval, hence called as frequency hopping. For example, a
frequency was allotted to sender 1 for a particular period of time.
Now, after a while, sender 1 hops to the other frequency and
sender 2 uses the first frequency, which was previously used by
sender 1. This is called as frequency reuse.

• The frequencies of the data are hopped from one to another in

order to provide a secure transmission. The amount of time spent
on each frequency hop is called as Dwell time.

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FHSS offers four main advantages over a

fixed-frequency transmission:
1. FHSS signals are highly resistant to narrowband interference
because the signal hops to a different frequency band.
2. Signals are difficult to intercept if the frequency-hopping pattern is
not known.
3. Jamming is also difficult if the pattern is unknown; the signal can
be jammed only for a single hopping period if the spreading
sequence is unknown.
4. FHSS transmissions can share a frequency band with many types
of conventional transmissions with minimal mutual interference.
FHSS signals add minimal interference to narrowband
communications, and vice versa.
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• The Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum or FHSS allows us to
utilize bandwidth properly and maximum. In this technique, the
whole available bandwidth is divided into many channels and
spread between channels, arranged continuously.
• The frequency slots are selected randomly, and frequency signals are
transmitted according to their occupancy.
• The transmitters and receivers keep on hopping on channels
available for a particular amount of time in milliseconds.
• So, you can see that it implements the frequency division
multiplexing and time-division multiplexing simultaneously in FHSS.

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The Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum or

FHSS can also be classified into two types:

• Explain.

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Advantages of Frequency Hopping Spread
Spectrum (FHSS)
• The biggest advantage of Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum or FHSS is its
high efficiency.
• The Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum or FHSS signals are highly resistant to
narrowband interference because the signal hops to a different frequency band.
• It requires a shorter time for acquisition.
• It is highly secure. Its signals are very difficult to intercept if the frequency-
hopping pattern is not known; that's why it is preferred to use in Military
services.
• We can easily program it to avoid some portions of the spectrum.
• Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum or FHSS transmissions can share a
frequency band with many types of conventional transmissions with minimal
mutual interference. FHSS signals add minimal interference to narrowband
communications, and vice versa.
• It provides a very large bandwidth.
• It can be simply implemented as compared to DsSS.
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Disadvantages of Frequency Hopping Spread

Spectrum (FHSS)
• FHSS is less Robust, so sometimes it requires error correction.
• FHSS needs complex frequency synthesizers.
• FHSS supports a lower data rate of 3 Mbps as compared to the 11
Mbps data rate supported by DSSS.
• It is not very useful for range and range rate measurements.
• It supports the lower coverage range due to the high SNR
requirement at the receiver.
• Nowadays, it is not very popular due to the emerging of new
wireless technologies in wireless products.

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Applications of Frequency Hopping Spread
Spectrum (FHSS)
• Following is the list of most used applications of Frequency
Hopping Spread Spectrum or FHSS:
• The Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum or FHSS is used in
wireless local area networks (WLAN) standard for Wi-Fi.
• FHSS is also used in the wireless personal area networks (WPAN)
standard for Bluetooth.

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Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS)

• Whenever a user wants to send data using this DSSS technique, each
and every bit of the user data is multiplied by a secret code, called
as chipping code.

• This chipping code is nothing but the spreading code which is

multiplied with the original message and transmitted.

• The receiver uses the same code to retrieve the original message.

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Following are the features of Direct Sequence
Spread Spectrum or DSSS.
• In Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum or DSSS technique, the data
that needs to be transmitted is split into smaller blocks.
• After that, each data block is attached with a high data rate bit
sequence and is transmitted from the sender end to
• the receiver end.
• Data blocks are recombined again to generate the original data at
the receiver's end, which was sent by the sender, with the help of
the data rate bit sequence.
• If somehow data is lost, then data blocks can also be recovered
with those data rate bits.
• The main advantage of splitting the data into smaller blocks is that
it reduces the noise and unintentional inference.
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The Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum or

DSSS can also be classified into two types:
• Wide Band Spread Spectrum
• Narrow Band Spread Spectrum

• Explain

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Advantages of Direct Sequence Spread
Spectrum (DSSS)
• The following are some advantages of Direct Sequence Spread
Spectrum or DSSS:
1. Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum or DSSS is less reluctant to noise; that's
why the DSSS system's performance in the presence of noise is better than
the FHSS system.
2. In Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum or DSSS, signals are challenging to
detect.
3. It provides the best discrimination against multipath signals.
4. In Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum, there are very few chances of
jamming because it avoids intentional interference such as jamming
effectively.

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Disadvantages of Direct Sequence Spread

Spectrum (DSSS)
• The Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum or DSSS system takes large
acquisition time; that's why its performance is slow.
• It requires wide-band channels with small phase distortion.
• In DSSS, the pseudo-noise generator generates a sequence at high
rates.

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Applications of Direct Sequence Spread

Spectrum (DSSS)
• Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum or DSSS is used in LAN
technology.
• Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum or DSSS is also used in Satellite
communication technology.
• DSSS is used in the military and many other commercial
applications.
• It is used in the low probability of the intercept signal.
• It supports Code division multiple access.

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Comparison between FHSS and DSSS/CDMA

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• What are the three ways to spread the bandwidth of the signal?
1. Direct sequence. The digital data is directly coded at a much higher
frequency. The code is generated pseudo-randomly, the receiver knows
how to generate the same code, and correlates the received signal with
that code to extract the data.
2. Frequency hopping. The signal is rapidly switched between different
frequencies within the hopping bandwidth pseudo-randomly, and the
receiver knows beforehand where to find the signal at any given time.
3. Time hopping. The signal is transmitted in short bursts pseudo-
randomly, and the receiver knows beforehand when to expect the
burst.
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Assignment
• Advantages / disadvantages
• Compare between FHSS and DSSS.

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END

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