EELE 3370

Communications I

Introduction
Islamic University of Gaza
Electrical Engineering Department

Dr. Talal Skaik 2016

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Dr. Talal Skaik 2016 IUG
 Communications
• 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.

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 Some examples of
communications systems.

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 Communication System Model

Input Transmitted Received

Message Signal Signal

Input
Transmitter Channel Receiver
Transducer

Input Signal
Noise
Output
Signal

Output
Message
Output
transducer

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 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
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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 Digital Communication System
transmitter

Source Source Channel

Modulation
input Coder Coder

channel Distortion and noise +

Reconstructed
Signal Source Channel
demodulation
output decoder decoder
receiver

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 Analog and Digital Signals

Analog signals values vary

continuously.

Digital signals value limited to a

finite set.

Binary signals have 2 possible

values used to represent bit values
Bit time T needed to send 1 bit
Data rate R = 1/T bits per second

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 Analog and Digital Messages
Messages could be digital or Analog.
Digital Message: Ordered combinations of finite symbols.
Example: text document in English, morse code (dash and dot).
Analog Messages: Characterized by data whose values vary over a
continuous range of time e.g temperature, atmospheric Pressure,
speech waveform.
Why are digital technologies better and Why are they replacing the
analog technologies?
Enhanced Immunity to noise and interference.
Message extraction from received signal is easier for digital signal
since digital decision must belong to the finite-sized alphabet. Detail of
received signal is not an issue.
In contrast: The waveform shape in analog message carries the
needed information, and even slight distortion or interference in the
waveform will show up in the received signal.
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 Analog and Digital Messages

(a) Transmitted signal. (b) Received distorted signal (without noise).

(c) Received distorted signal (with noise). (d) Regenerated signal

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 Analog to Digital conversion (A/D)

Two steps in A/D conversion – sampling and quantization

Continuous time signal is sampled into discrete time signal

(DTS).
Continuous amplitude of the DTS is quantized into discrete
level signal.

Sampling Theorem: if the highest frequency in signal

spectrum is B (in Hz), the signal can be reconstructed from its
discrete samples taken uniformly at a rate not less than 2B
samples per second.
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 Analog to Digital conversion (A/D)
Quantization: Sample is approximated or “rounded off” to
the nearest quantized level.
Given signal m(t), whose amplitude range (–mp, mp), quantizer
partitions the signal range into L intervals.
Each sample amplitude ~ midpoint of interval.
Each sample is represented by one of the L numbers (digitized).
Quantized signal is an approximation of original signal.
Accuracy improves with increase in L
Voice signal L = 8 or 16 is sufficient.
Commercial use, L = 32 is minimum, telephone L 128 or 256
commonly used.

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Analog to Digital conversion (A/D)

Analog-to-digital conversion of a signal.

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 Pulse Coded Modulation
 The task of Communication system is to transmit the quantized
samples (done with the aid of PCM).
 Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally
represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form of digital
audio in computers, Compact Discs, digital telephony and other
digital audio applications.
 In PCM, each quantized sample is represented by an ordered
combination of pulses p1(t) and p2(t) where p1(t) represents 1
and p2(t) represents 0.
 Each of the L possible samples can be written as a bit string of
length log2L. Example: if L=16, each quantized level is described by
4 bits.
 The binary case of great practical importance bacause of its
simplicity and ease of detection.
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Pulse Coded
Modulation

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 Channel Error
If there is too much channel distortion or noise, receiver may make
a mistake, and the regenerated signal will be incorrect. Channel
coding is needed to detect and correct the message.

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 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.

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 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.

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 Channel Capacity, Shannon’s equation
• Shannon Theory
It establishes that given a noisy channel with
information capacity C and information transmitted
at a rate R, then:
– if R<C, there exists a coding technique which allows
the probability of error at the receiver to be made
arbitrarily small. This means that theoretically, it is
possible to transmit information without error up to
a limit, C.
– If R>C, the probability of error at the receiver
increases as the rate is increased. So no useful
information can be transmitted beyond the channel
capacity
• Shannon Capacity (equation)
C = B log2(1+ SNR)
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 Channel Capacity, Shannon’s equation
• C – Channel Capacity and is the upper bound of the rate of
information transmission per second or is the maximum
number of bits that can be transmitted per second with
probability of error arbitrarily close to zero.
• Not possible to transmit at a rate higher than this without
incurring any error.
• Practical system operate at rates below the shannon rate.
• B and SNR demonstrate ultimate limitation on the rate of
communication.

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 Example
Find the Shannon channel capacity for a telephone channel
with BT = 3400 Hz and SNR = 10000

C = 3400 log2 (1 + 10000)

= 3400 log10 (10001)/log102 = 45200 bps

Note that SNR = 10000 corresponds to

SNR (dB) = 10 log10(10001) = 40 dB

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 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.

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 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.

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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.
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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 Radio Frequency Bands
Classification Band Initials Frequency Range Characteristics

Extremely low ELF < 300 Hz

Ground wave
Infra low ILF 300 Hz - 3 kHz

Very low VLF 3 kHz - 30 kHz

Low LF 30 kHz - 300 kHz

Medium MF 300 kHz - 3 MHz Ground/Sky wave

High HF 3 MHz - 30 MHz Sky wave

Very high VHF 30 MHz - 300 MHz

Ultra high UHF 300 MHz - 3 GHz

Space wave
Super high SHF 3 GHz - 30 GHz

Extremely high EHF 30 GHz - 300 GHz

Tremendously high THF 300 GHz - 3000 GHz

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Morse Code

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