EET 3351

Communication Systems

1
 Course Content

• Introduction: History of electronic communications; basic block diagram of a

communication system; Electromagnetic spectrum; bandwidth; frequency
management.
• Communication Signal Transmission: Review of the Fourier transform; signal
transmission through a linear system; signal distortion over a communication
channel.
• Noise in communication systems: Noise performance in various modulation
schemes, noise figures and signal-to-noise ratio.
• Amplitude modulation: AM spectrum; Modulation Index; Power content; DSB-SC;
SSB-SC; Vestigial Sideband Transmission (VSB); Performance comparison of various
AM systems.
CAT I
• Angle Modulation: Phase Modulation;
• Frequency modulation (FM); Phasor representation; Wideband FM; FM
bandwidth for arbitrary signal; FM generation (Direct method, reactance
modulator, Varactor diode method, FET reactance modulator).
• Demodulating FM waves: classification of FM demodulators; Frequency
discriminator; slope detector; Phase discriminator; Performance comparison of FM
demodulating methods.
CAT II
• AM and FM transmitters and receivers: AM transmitter; SSB transmitter; SSB
receivers; FM transmitter; Tuned radio frequency and super heterodyne 47
receivers; Diversity receivers; FM receivers.
References

1. S Haykin & M Moher Communication Systems, 5th ed.,

2. B.P. Lathi, Modern Digital and Analog Communication Systems, 4th ed.,
Oxford University Press, 2009.
3. J.G. Proakis and M. Salehi, Communication Systems Engineering, Prentice-
Hall, 1994

Course Assessment

Continuous Assessment Tests 10%

Assignments 5%
Practicals 25%
End of Semester Examination 60%
Total 100%
 INTRODUCTION
• Communications is the Process of Transmitting Information
from a Source to a Destination

• Example of typical communication systems

– Wire-line telephone – Cellular phone
– TV broadcasting system.
– Wireless computer network
– Satellite Communications.
 Some examples of
communications systems.
 Communication System Model

Input Transmitted Received

Message Signal Signal

Input
Transmitter Channel Receiver
Transducer

Input Signal
Noise
Output
Signal

Output
Message
Output
transducer
 Communication System Model (cntd)
• Source: originates a message (human voice, a television picture,
an email, or data message, or data
• Input Transducer: Converts nonelectric (human voice, email text,
TV video) into an electric waveform called a message or baseband
signal using physical devices (microphone, a computer keyboard,
or a camera)
• Transmitter: Modifies the baseband signal for efficient
transmission and may consist of A/D converter, an encoder, and a
modulator. [Receiver- Demodulator, decoder and D/A.]
• Channel: Medium that convey the electric signals at the
transmitter output over a distance. Examples:
• Twisted copper wire – telephone and DSL,
• Coaxial Cable – television and internet,
• Optical fiber or radio link
 Communication System Model (cntd)
• Receiver: Reprocesses signals received from the channel by
reversing signal modifications made at the transmitter.
Removal of noise due to channel.
• Output Transducer: Converts electric signal to its original
form (Message)
• Destination: Unit to which message is communicated.
 Communication System Model (cntd)
• The Signal is distorted by Channel and Noise, which are
random and unpredictable .
• NOISE comes from external and internal sources
• External sources comes from : Interference signals
transmitted on nearby channels, lightning, electrical
equipment, cell phones emission, etc…
• Internal noise results from thermal motions of electrons in
conductors.
• SNR: The signal to noise ratio is defined as the ratio of the
signal power to the noise power. The channel distorts the
signal and the noise accumulates along the path.
 Communication System Model (cntd)
• The signal strength decreases while the noise level remains
steady with distance from the transmitter.
• Thus SNR is continuously decreasing along the channel.
• For good results, SNR is supposed to be high. In other words
signal power should be high compared to noise power.
 Bandwidth and Power
• The fundamental parameters that control the rate and
quality of information transmission are the channel
bandwidth and the signal power S.
Channel Bandwidth
The bandwidth (BW) of a channel is the range of
frequencies that it can transmit with reasonable fidelity .
OR: Difference between the highest and the lowest
frequencies in the specific range of frequencies.
• Example: if channel can transmit with reasonable fidelity
a signal whose frequency components vary from 0 Hz
(dc) up to maximum 5000 Hz (5 KHz), the Channel
bandwidth B is 5 KHz.
 Bandwidth and Power
• The signal power S plays an important role in
information transmission.
• Increasing S reduces the effect of channel noise and
thus accurate data is received.
• Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) means, the higher
(strength) the value of the signal compared to Noise,
the quality of the signal would be better over a longer
distance.
• However, a certain minimum SNR is necessary for
communication.
 Modulation and Detection
•Message from source – baseband signal because they are
lowpass in nature.
•Baseband signals are not always suitable for direct
transmission over the channel.
•Messages will need to be moved to the right channel
frequency band.
•Modulation: baseband signal is used to modify (i.e modulate),
some parameter of RF carrier signal.
•Carrier: Sinusoid of high frequency.
 Modulation and Detection
In modulation, one of carrier sinusoidal parameter such as
amplitude, frequency, or phase is varied in proportion to the
baseband signal m(t).
Fig. 1.6 shows a baseband m(t) and the corresponding
Amplitude modulation (AM) and Frequency Modulation (FM)
waveforms after modulation.
Demodulation – Reversal process of modulation to
reconstruct the baseband signal.
Figure 1.6 Modulation:
(a) carrier;
(b) modulating (base band) signal;
(c) amplitude-modulated wave;
(d) frequency-modulated wave.

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 Modulation and Detection
Reason for modulation
Ease of radiation/Transmission: radiating antenna is an
order of a fraction or more of the wavelength of the driving
signal.
Wavelength are usually high for reasonable antenna
dimension for baseband signal.
E.g) power in a speech signal is concentrated in the range
of 100-3000 Hz, wavelength is 100 to 3000 km which will
result in impractically large antenna.
By modulating a high frequency carrier, the signal
spectrum is translated to the neighborhood of the carrier
frequency that corresponds to a much smaller wavelength.
 Modulation and Detection
Reason for modulation
Avoid Interference
If several signals (for example, all radio stations), each
occupying the same frequency band, are transmitted
simultaneously over the same transmission medium,
they will all interfere.
 Difficult to separate or retrieve them at a receiver.
 One solution is to use modulation whereby each radio
station is assigned a distinct carrier frequency.
 Modulation and Detection
Reason for modulation
Each station transmits a modulated signal, thus
shifting the signal spectrum to its allocated band, which
is not occupied by any other station.
When you tune a radio or television set to a particular
station, you are selecting one of the many signals being
received at that time.
 Since each station has a different assigned carrier
frequency, the desired signal can be separated from the
others by filtering.
 Modulation and Detection
Demodulation

Requires bandpass filter at the receiver to select the

modulated signal at a predetermined frequency band
specified by the transmission station or channel.
The carrier variation of amplitude, frequency or phase
is converted back into baseband signal voltage.
Demodulator can downconvert the modulated (RF)
signals back into baseband signals that represent original
source message.
 Milestones in Communications
• 1837, Morse code used in telegraph
• 1864 Maxwell formulated the eletromagnetic (EM) theory
1864,
• 1887, Hertz demonstrated physical evidence of EM waves
• 1890’s-1900’s
1890 s-1900 s, Marconi & Popov,
Popov long-distance radio
telegraph
– Across Atlantic Ocean
– From Cornwall to Canada

• 1875, Bell invented the telephone

• 1906, radio broadcast
• 1918, Armstrong invented superheterodyne radio receiver
(and FM in 1933)
• 1921, land-mobile communication
 Milestones (2)
• 1928, Nyquist proposed the sampling theorem
• 1947,, microwave relayy system
y
• 1948, information theory
• 1957, era of satellite communication began
• 1966, Kuen Kao pioneered fiber-optical
communications (Nobel Prize Winner)
• 1970’ era off computer
1970’s, t networks
t k bbegan
• 1981, analog cellular system
• 1988 digital cellular system debuted in Europe
1988,
• 2000, 3G network
• The big 3 telecom manufacturers in 2010
 Cellular Mobile Phone Network
• A large area is partitioned into cells
• Frequency reuse to maximize capacity
 Growth of Mobile Communications
• 1G: analog communications
– AMPS
• 2G: digital communications
– GSM
– IS-95
• 3G: CDMA networks
– WCDMA
– CDMA2000
– TD-SCDMA
TD SCDMA
• 4G: data rate up to
1 Gbps (giga bits per second)
– Pre-4G technologies:
WiMax, 3G LTE
 Satellite/Space Communication
• Satellite communication
– Cover very large areas
– Optimized for one-way transmission
• Radio (DAB) and movie (SatTV)
broadcasting
– Two-way systems
• The only choice for remote-area and
maritime communications
• Propagation delay (0.25 s) is
uncomfortable in voice
communications
• Space communication
– Missions to Moon, Mars, …
– Long distance, weak signals
– High-gain antennas
– Powerful error-control coding
 Future Wireless Networks
Ubiquitous Communication Among People and Devices
Wireless
Wi l IInternet
t t access
Nth generation Cellular
Ad Hoc Networks
Sensor Networks
Wireless Entertainment
Smart Homes/Grids
Automated Highways
All this and more…
•Hard Delay Constraints
•Hard Energy Constraints