Optical Communication Theory and Techniques

Part I: Communication Theory and Digital Transmission

January 11, 2012

1. The images of the equally likely signals used by System 1 System 2

two communication systems are as shown in the ϕ2 ϕ2
√
E s2
figure. In both cases, the channel is AWGN with ′

noise power spectral density N0 /2 and an optimum s2 s1 s′1

receiver is used. Tell whether one of the two sys- q q ϕ1 √ ϕ1
tems performs better than the other and why. − E E E
2 2

2. Tell which of the systems of the previous point is preferable and why.

3. Give an an expression for the error probability of an optimum receiver for generic equally
probable binary signals corrupted by AWGN in terms of their energies E1 and E2 and their
correlation coefficient ρ , cos α, where α is the angle between the images of the signals.

4. The two binary FSK signals s1 (t) = A cos 2π f1 t and s2 (t) = A cos 2π f2 t are orthogonal in (0, T )
if f2 − f1 = 1/(2T ) and fi  1/T , i = 1, 2. In this case, if the signals are equally √ likely, the


probability of error of an optimum receiver in the presence of AWGN is Pb = Q Eb /N0 , with
Eb = A2 T /2. Suppose now that s2 (t) is replaced with s20 (t) = A cos 2π f20 t, where f20 = f2 +1/(4T ),
and the receiver changed accordingly, such that it is now optimum for {s1 (t), s20 (t)}. Tell whether
the probability of error Pb0 of the new receiver is the same as Pb . If not, is it larger or smaller?

5. Three equally likely messages m1 , m2 , and m3 are to be transmitted over an AWGN channel
with noise power spectral density N0 /2. The signals used are as in the following figure:

s1(t) s2(t) s3(t)

1 1
T
2 T T
t T t t
−1 −1

(a) What is the dimensionality of the signal space?

(b) Find an orthonormal basis for the signal space.
(c) Draw the signal constellation.
(d) Sketch the optimal decision regions D1 , D2 , and D3 .
(e) Which of the three signals is more vulnerable to errors and why?
Solution:
1. The probability of a bit error Pb of a generic binary system with equally likely signals can be
expressed as !
d
Pb = Q √
2N0
and thus depends only on the distance d between the signals. Denoting √ by√ di , i = 1, 2,
the
q√ distance between the signals of system i, we have that d 1 = 2 E/2 = 2E and d2 =
√ √
( E)2 + ( E)2 = 2E. As d1 = d2 , the two systems perform the same.

2. Denoting by Eb(i) , i = 1, 2, the average energy per bit for system i, we have
!
(1) 1 E E 1
Eb = + = E
2 2 2 2
1
Eb(2) = (E + E) = E .
2
Thus, as system 1 spends half the energy of system 2 for achieving the same performance, it is
preferable.
3. The squared distance between two signals s1 (t) and s2 (t) is
ˆ T
2
d = [s1 (t) − s2 (t)]2 dt
0
ˆ Th i
= s12 (t) + s22 (t) − 2s1 (t)s2 (t) dt
0
ˆ T
= E1 + E2 − 2 s1 (t)s2 (t)dt .
0
Now, by definition, we have
ˆ
sT1 s2 1 T
ρ , cos α = =√ s1 (t)s2 (t)dt
ks1 k · ks1 k E1 E2 0

and hence
p
d 2 = E1 + E2 − 2ρ E1 E2
s 
 E + E − 2ρ√E E 
1 2 1 2
P(E ) = Q  
2N0 

4. For equally likely and equal-energy signals, we have

r 
 Eb 
P(E ) = Q  (1 − ρ)
N0
where ρ is the correlation coefficient of the signals. For the FSK signals s1 (t) and s2 (t) we have
ˆ T
1
ρ= A cos 2π f1 t · A cos 2π f2 tdt
Eb 0
ˆ T ˆ T !
1 A2
= cos[2π( f1 − f2 )t]dt + cos[2π( f1 + f2 )t]dt
Eb 2 0 0

1 A2 sin 2π( f1 − f2 )t] T
= 
Eb 2 2π( f1 − f2 )  0
sin 2π( f1 − f2 )T
=
2π( f1 − f2 )T
 For f2 − f1 = 1/(2T ), we have ρ = 0, while for f20 − f1 = f2 − f1 + 1/(4T ) = 3/(4T ) we obtain
2
ρ=−
3π
and therefore s
 E !
b 2 
Pb0 = Q  1+  < Pb .
N0 3π 

5. (a) It is easy to see that s1 (t) is orthogonal to both s2 (t) and s3 (t), while s2 (t) = −s3 (t). So, the
dimensionality of the signal space is Q = 2.
(b) It suffices normalizing s1 (t) and s2 (t), for example. So that
s1 (t)
ϕ1 (t) = √
T
s2 (t)
ϕ2 (t) = √
T
is an orthonormal basis for the signal space.
(c) With respect to the previous basis, the images of the signals are
√ ! ! !
T 0 0
s1 = , s2 = √ , s3 = √
0 T − T
and hence the constellation is as in the figure below.
ϕ2

√ s2
T

s1
√ ϕ1
T

√
− T s3

(d) As the signals are equally likely, the boundary between the decision regions of any pair of
signals is the line perpendicular to the line segment joining the signals and passing through
its middle point. Thus, the decision regions are as sketched in the following figure.
ϕ2

√ s2
T

D2
D1 s1
√ ϕ1
T
D3
√
− T s3

√
(e) As can be seen, s1 has 2 neighbors at minimum distance dmin = 2T , while the other
signals have only 1. Thus, s1 can be equally likely confused with either s2 or s3 , while
both s2 and s3 are more likely confused only with s1 . It follows that s1 is more vulnerable
to errors.