Introduction to

Telecommunication

Introduction to the Course

Asst. Prof. Dr. Ertuğrul SAATÇI

About this course

 Prerequisites:
• Coming into this class you should already have a knowledge of
Signals and Systems, Fourier Transforms and Input/Output
relationships in a linear time invariant system.

 Text Book:
• Haykin and Moher, Introduction to Analog and Digital
Communications, Second Edition, Wiley and Sons, 2007.

 Recommended Books:
• Proakis and Salehi, Fundamentals of Communication Systems,
Prentice Hall, 2005.
• Lathi and Ding, Modern Digital and Analog Communication
Systems, Fourth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2009.

 Tentative Grading:
Midterm I Midterm II Final
30% 30% 40%

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About this course
 The course can be broken down into two basic segments:
• Section I – Signals and System Theory applied to
communications
• Section II – Analog Communication Systems

About this course

 Tentative Course Outline:
• Introduction, Elements of Communication System, Limitations
of Communication Systems, Analog and Digital Messages.
• Modulation, CW Modulation, Pulse Modulation, The need for
modulation, Advantages of Digital Communication over Analog
Communication.
• Signal Analysis and Frequency Spectra: Fourier Series, Fourier
Transform (FT), Properties of FT, Amplitude Spectrum, Phase
Spectrum, Energy Spectral Density, Power Spectral Density.
• Amplitude Modulation (AM), AM Modulators and Demodulators,
Conventional AM, DSB–AM, SSB-AM, Vestigal Sideband
Modulation.
• Frequency Modulation (FM), FM Bandwidth, FM Modulators and
Demodulators, Comparison of AM and FM.
• Noise in AM Receivers.
• Sampling Theorem, Practical Sampling, PAM. (If time permits)
• TDM, FDM, PCM. (If time permits)
• Information Content and Channel Capacity. (If time permits)

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What is Communications?
 Definition: Communications is the transfer of information at
one time or location to another time or location.

 Generic Communication System:

Original Estimated
information Information
signal Signal

Elements of a communication system.

A Communications System
 Information Source
● Information may take many forms: data, image, voice, video.
● Information can be either analog or digital.
 Analog information can also be ‘digitized’.
● Information is defined as the amount of “surprise” at the receiver.
 Transmitter
● Processes information and puts it into a form suitable for
transmission.
● This typically means transforming into an electromagnetic signal.
 Can be either ‘baseband’ or ‘bandpass’.
 Channel
● Relays information between locations (without perfect fidelity).
 Receiver
● Must reconstruct transmitted information from the corrupted
received waveform as accurately as possible.

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A Communications System
Broadcasting & Point-to-Point Communications

 We communicate in one of two basic ways or both:

• Broadcasting
 Which involves the use of a single powerful transmitter and
numerous receivers that are relatively inexpensive to build.

• Point-to-point communications
 In which the communication process takes place over a link
between a single transmitter and a single receiver.

Broadcasting & Point-to-Point Communications

Examples
 Broadcast Radio: Music and voice are transmitted from a broadcast
station to large number of receivers (i.e., radios) over the air.

 Broadcast Television: Images are transmitted from a broadcast station

to a large number of receivers (i.e., TVs) over the air.

 Telephone system: Voice (digital data also possible) transmitted from

one point to another point (i.e., one phone to another) through wires
(both copper and optical fiber).

 Cellular telephone: Voice (digital data also possible) transmitted from

one point to another point through both wires and over the air.

 Internet (computer networks): Digital data transmitted from one

point to another point through wires.

 Satellite communication systems: Digital data or voice transmitted

from one point to another point using satellite as an intermediate
transmitter/receiver.

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Key Inventions in the History of
Communications
 ~3000 B.C. Written Language  1948 Information Theory
 1440 Printed Type (Gutenberg) (Shannon)
 1844 Telegraph (Morse)  1950 Digital Long Distance
 1876 Telephone (Bell) Telephone Lines (Bell Labs)
 1897 Wireless Telegraph  1962 Telstar I communication
(Marconi) satellite (Bell Labs)
 1918 Practical AM receiver  1979 First commercial cellular
(Armstrong) telephone (Motorola/AT&T)
 1920 First Radio Broadcasts  1990 Second Generation
(Digital) cellular systems
 1928 Television (Farnsworth) (TDMA)
 1933 FM Radio (Armstrong)  1993 CDMA Cellular systems
 1936 BBC begins first TV  2002 - Third Generation
broadcasts Cellular Systems

Primary Resources and Operational

Requirements
 The systems are designed to provide for the efficient utilization
of the two primary communication resources:
 Transmitted power
● The average power of the transmitted signal.
 Channel bandwidth
● The width of the passband of the channel.

 Classify communication channel

 Power-limited channel
● Wireless channels
● Satellite channels
● Deep-space links
 Band-limited channel
● Telephone channels
● Television channels

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What Makes a Good Communication
System
 Good Received Signal Fidelity
● Analog System: high Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)
● Digital System: low Bit Error Rate (BER)

 Low Transmit Signal Power.

 A large amount of information is transmitted.

 Signal occupies a small bandwidth.

 System has a low cost (complexity?)

 Complex digital operations have steadily grown cheaper.

 Communications engineers must trade off all of these.

Examples of Tradeoffs in Communications

Designs
 Satellite and Deep Space Communications
● Power is expensive to generate in space and transmission
distances are enormous – Must be very energy efficient.

 Microwave Relay Towers

● Power is cheap, but available bandwidth is restricted by
regulation - Must be very bandwidth efficient.

 Cellular Phones
● Power is costly (impacts battery life and size) but
bandwidth is also limited - Must be both bandwidth and
power efficient.

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Digital vs. Analog Communications
 Digital Communication Systems
● transmit a finite number of signals.
● text and data are naturally digital information sources.

 Analog Communication Systems

● transmit a continuous (uncountably infinite) range of
signals.
● voice and video are natural analog information sources.

 An analog information source can be converted into a digital

source by
● Sampling the signal in time.
● Quantizing the signal amplitude to a finite number of
levels.

Digital vs. Analog Communications

 In this course we will spend much of out time investigating
analog modulation techniques despite the fact that all new
communication systems are digital.

 However, digital modulation is simply analog modulation where

the message signal is binary (or M-ary).
 We will show how analog modulation techniques apply to
digital modulation (If time permits).
 We will also spend some of the class discussing baseband
digital communications (If time permits).

 EE976 Digital Communication Systems studies bandpass digital

techniques in detail.

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Bandpass vs. Baseband
 The information signal or message signal m(t) is a baseband
signal, that is it contains energy about DC (f=0).

 The transmitted signal may be at baseband or may be a

bandpass signal, that is it contains energy about f=fc where
fc>>0.

 Wireless signals are (almost) always bandpass due to FCC

regulations and physical antenna limitations whereas
 wireline signals could be either bandpass or baseband.

 Each wireless application is assigned a specific frequency band

in which it can radiate energy.
 This is one reason why Fourier Transforms (spectral
information) are so important in communications.

Understanding Theories of Communication

Systems
 Modulation Theory
 Sinusoidal carrier wave
● Whose amplitude, phase, or frequency is the parameter
chosen for modification by the information-bearing
signal.
 Periodic sequence of pulses
● Whose amplitude, width, or position is the parameter
chosen for modification by the information-bearing
signal.
 The issues in modulation theory
● Time-domain description of the modulation signal.
● Frequency-domain description of the modulated signal.
● Detection of the original information-bearing signal and
evaluation of the effect of noise on the receiver.

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Understanding Theories of Communication
Systems
 Fourier Analysis
 Fourier analysis provides the mathematical basis for
evaluating the following issues:
● Frequency-domain description of a modulated signal,
including its transmission bandwidth.
● Transmission of a signal through a linear system
exemplified by a communication channel or filter.
● Correlation between a pair of signals.
 Detection Theory
 Signal-detection problem
● The presence of noise.
● Factors such as the unknown phase-shift introduced
into the carrier wave due to transmission of the
sinusoidally modulated signal over the channel.

Understanding Theories of Communication

Systems
 Probability Theory and Random Processes
 Probability theory for describing the behavior of randomly
occurring events in mathematical terms.
 Statistical characterization of random signals and noise.

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To Study Communication Systems
You Must Understand ...
 Signals and Systems
● We will briefly review.
 Modulation Theory
● We will study this in detail.
 Fourier Analysis
● We will review this in detail and use it throughout the course.
 Detection Theory
● Given that this signal is corrupt at the receiver, how do we
determine the original signal?
● We will examine this through a measure termed signal-to-
noise ratio.
 Probability Theory
● Since the transmitted signal and noise are both unknown to
the receiver, we can use probability theory to study
communications systems.
● We will touch on this aspect for analog systems but detailed
discussion will be deferred for EE976.

Signals and Systems

 In this course we will rely on mathematical representations of
signals and systems to describe communications.
 Relies on background obtained from EE550.

 A system is characterized by inputs and outputs which are

mathematically modeled as signals.

 We will also mathematically represent the signals at various

points within a communications system.

 Mathematical representations of the various components of the

system can be viewed as subsystems
 with input-output relationships defined by
● Impulse response in the time domain.
● Transfer function in the frequency domain.

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System Representation
 H typically used to represent the system.
● x(t) typically used to represent the excitation or input to
the system.
● y(t) typically used to represent the response or output of
the system.
● Systems can have multiple inputs and/or multiple outputs.

 Example of a Single-Input Single Output system:

 For Linear Systems: y (t )  

 x(t )  h
(t ) (f)
Y X( f )
H( f )
output input impulse output input Transfer

 
response
 
Function

Time Domain Frequency Domain

System Properties
 There are several properties of systems that are important to
understand.

 Many properties allow us to make simplifications in our analysis.

 Specific properties
● Time Invariance
● Additivity
● Linearity
● Stability
● Causality
● Memory
● Invertibility

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Mathematical Descriptions
 Many systems which are encountered in engineering
 process signals which represent physical processes that are
measured, controlled, or recorded.

 We design and analyze systems

 by representing these signals using mathematical
descriptions which are typically functions of time or space.

 Our representations will not exactly match the real-world

signals,
 but they are sufficiently close to allow extremely accurate
prediction of the system behavior.

Physically Realizable Functions

 Physically realizable functions
● Have finite time duration (finite energy!).
● Occupy finite frequency spectrum.
● Are continuous.
● Have finite peak value.
● Are real-valued.

 All real-world signals will have these properties, although

sometimes we use mathematical models which violate these
conditions.

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Mathematical Representations

● Extends to
infinity in time.
● Has infinite
frequency extent.

● Ends after T
seconds.
● Has finite
frequency content.

Classification of Signals
 Although functions can operate on any type of variable, we will
be most concerned with functions of time.

 Signals (or more specifically their mathematical representations)

can be categorized according to a few major features.
● Continuous Time or Discrete Time
● Deterministic or Random
● Power or Energy
● Periodic or Aperiodic

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Conclusions
 Today we have
● Described the basic components of the course and the class
mechanics.
● Provided an overview of the course content.

 Next lecture we will

● Begin our discussion of the Fourier Analysis for
communication systems by examining the Fourier Transform.

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