ENGG 2310-B: Principles of Communication Systems

201415 First Term

In-Class Quiz 5 Solution

Instructor: Wing-Kin Ma

Problem 1

November 10, 2014

Consider PCM.

(a) Assume uniform quantization. Design the quantization levels {vi } when the number of quantization levels is 8 and the maximum signal amplitude is |m|max = 4. Also, design the encoding
table (of course, with the smallest possible binary codeword length).
(c) For Problem 1.(a), determine the bit rate, that is, the number of bits transmitted per second,
when the message signal bandwidth is W = 3 kHz. Note that the smallest possible bit rate
under the requirement of the sampling theorem is desired.
Answer: (a)
Level vi

Binary codeword

-3.5

011

-2.5

010

-1.5

001

-0.5

000

0.5

100

1.5

101

2.5

110

3.5

111

Note that one may not need to follow exactly the same codeword pattern as in the answer above.
What remains true is that a length-3 binary codeword set (or R = 3) is sufficient and length-minimal
to represent 8 signal levels.
(b) The number of bits per sample, or the codeword length, for Problem 1.(a) is R = 3. Also, we
should sample the message signal with a minimum sampling rate of fs = 2W = 6 kHz. As a result,
the bit rate is fs R = 18 kHz.