Principles of Communication Systems

Lecture 2

Predrag Spasojevic
 Signals

A signal is a set of information or data.

Examples: telephone or a television signal, closing stock prices

In all these examples, the signals are functions of the independent variable time.

electrical charge is distributed over a surface, for instance, the signal is the charge density, a function of space

In this book we deal almost exclusively with signals that are functions of time.
 Systems
systems: process signals, modify them or extract additional information from them.

example: an antiaircraft missile launcher may want to know the future location of a hostile moving target, which is
being tracked by radar.

the radar signal gives the past location and velocity of the target,
by properly processing the radar signal (the input), one can approximately estimate the future location of the target.

System processes a set of signals (inputs) to yield another set of signals (outputs).

A system:
set of physical components (electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic systems (hardware realization), or

an algorithm that computes an output from an input signal (software realization).

Signals: Finite and infinite time (energy)
 Signal Energy (finite time signals) (Joules)

We define signal energy E8 of the signal g (t) as the energy that the voltage g (t) dissipates on the resistor.
 Signal Power (Watts)

signal Power: time average of the energy

(logarithmic) Signal Power (dB W/dBm)

-30 dBm represents signal power of 10(-6) W in normal decimal scale

Signal (energy/power) Examples
Signal Classification

1.Continuous time and discrete time signals

2. Analog and digital signals

3. Periodic and aperiodic signals

4. Energy and power signals

5. Deterministic and probabilistic signals

Continuous time and Discrete time signals.
 Analog Digital

Continuous time

Discrete time.
Periodic vs Aperiodic Signals

A signal g (t) is said to be periodic if there exists a positive constant To such that
Energy and Power Signals

Every signal observed in real life is an energy signal.

A power signal, on the other hand, must have an infinite duration.

 Deterministic and Random Signals

A signal whose physical description is known completely, either in a mathematical form or a

graphical form is a deterministic signal.

A signal that is known only in terms of probabilistic description, such as mean value, mean square
value, and distributions is a random signal.

Most of the noise signals encountered in practice are random signals.

All message signals are random signals because

a signal, to convey information, must have some uncertainty (randomness) about it

UNIT IMPULSE SIGNAL

• Dirac Delta

Sampling/Sifting property
Unit Step Function u (t)
causal signal
SIGNALS VERSUS VECTORS

Consider a signal g (t) defined over a closed time interval [a, b].

Let we pick N points uniformly on the time interval [a, b J such that

inner (dot or scalar) product

0 is the angle between vectors g and x.

Component (Projection) of a Vector along Another Vector

c is chosen to minimize the magnitude of the error vector

 Signal projection

Minimum energy approximation

error in this approximation

Signal Projection example
Energy of the Sum of Orthogonal Signals
Complex Signal Space and Orthogonality
Energy of the Sum of Orthogonal Signals
 CORRELATION OF SIGNALS

By defining the inner product and the norm of signals, we paved the foundation for signal comparison.

g and x are similar if g has a large component along x.

In other words, if c in is large, the vectors g and x are similar

Such a measure, however, would be defective because it varie with the norms (or lengths) of g and x

The amount of similarity can therefore be conveniently measured by

correlation coefficient

Cauchy-Schwarz inequality
 Correlation Functions
signal detection in a radar unit

By detecting the presence or absence of the reflected pulse, we confirm the presence or absence of the target

By measuring the time delay between the transmitted and received (reflected) pulse, we determine
the distance of the target.

reflected pulses be denoted by g (t) and z(t),

cross-correlation function of two complex signals

indication of similarity (correlation) of g (t) with z (t) advanced (leftshifted)

Autocorrelation Function

measures the similarity of the signal g (t) with its own displaced version

Radar Impulse
 Orthogonal Vector Space

3-D vector space described by three mutually orthogonal vectors x1 , x2, and x3,

approximate a three-dimensional vector g in terms of two orthogonal vectors x1 and x2 :

error vector e is minimum when it is perpendicular to the (x1 , x2) plane, and
when c1 x1 and c2x2 are the projections (components) of g on x1 and x2

best approximation to g in terms of all the three mutually orthogonal vectors x1 , x2, and X3 :

g is a three-dimensional vector, and the vectors x1 , x2 , and x3 represent a complete set of orthogonal vectors in 3-D space
 Complete Set (a Basis)
Completeness here means that it is impossible in this space to find any other
vector x4, which is orthogonal to all the three vectors x1 , x2, and x3

Any vector in this space can therefore be represented ( with zero error) in terms of these three vectors.

Such vectors are known as basis vectors, and the set of vector is known as a complete orthogonal basis
of this vector space.

If a set of vectors { xi } is not complete, then the approximation error will generally not be zero.

For example, in the three-dimensional case just discussed earlier,

it is generally not possible to represent a vector g in terms of only two basis vectors without an error.

The choice of basis vectors is not unique

 Completeness and Orthogonal Basis: A summary

if a set of vectors { xi } is mutually orthogonal, that is, if

And { xi } is complete.

Then
 Orthogonal Signal Space

a signal set x1 (t), x2 (t), . . . XN (t) is orthogonal if

if the orthogonal set is complete

 Generalized Fourier Series

Because the error signal energy approaches zero, it follows that the energy of g (t) is now equal to the
sum of the energies of its orthogonal components.

When the set {xn (t) } is such that the error energy EN ➔ 0 as N ➔ oo for every member of some particular signal class,

we say that the set {xn (t) } is complete on { } for that class of g (t), and

the set {xn(t) } is called a set of basis functions or basis signals.

Parseval's Theorem

the energy of the right-hand side of

is the sum of the energies of the individual orthogonal components

Hence,

In vector space we know that the square of the length of a vector is

equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of its orthogonal components.
THE EXPONENTIAL FOURIER SERIES
set of exponentials (n = 0, ±1 , ±2, . . .) is orthogonal over any interval of duration To

this set is a complete set

a signal g (t) can be expressed over an interval of duration To second(s) as an exponential Fourier series

It is periodic with period To .

Exponential Series: Example