EEE400 COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS 1

Part 1 EEE 400 Lecture Notes

Basics of a Communication System Ek1

put
Information
Source and Output
Input Transmitter Channel Receiver Transducer
Transducer B C D E
A
Source and
A) Information Source: Audio, image, text, data

Input Transducer: Converts source to electric signal

 Microphone
 Camera
 Keyboardt

B) ITransmitter:
 Converts electrical signal into form suitable for channel
 Modulator
 Amplifier

C) Channel:
Medium used to transfer signal from transmitter to receiver.
 Wire lines
 Fiber optic cable
 Atmosphere
Often adds noise / weakens & distorts signal

D) Receiver
 Extracts an estimate of the original transducer output
 Demodulator
 Amplifier Channel Receiver Output

E) Output Transducer: Converts electric signal to useable form

 Speaker
 Monitor
Types of Communications Systems Wk 2

1) Analogue systems

These involve continuous signals varying in amplitude, frequency or phase. When

varying in amplitude, these signals are more prone to noise that other signals.
They are simpler to implement but limited in capacity.

2) Digital systems

Digital signals are represented as pulses or ones and zeroes to show presence or
absence of a pulse. Because these systems are transmitting pulses, in detection, we
will be concerned about the presence or absence of pulses and therefore they will
be least affected by noise. Capacity will also depend on speed of pulses
transmission and consequently, it is easier to have high capacity systems. For
example, mobile telephony in Kenya started with an analog system ETACS
(Extended Total Access Communications System with only 2000 subscriber
capacity. However when the network was upgraded to a digital system, it came
with 20,000 subscriber capacity and it has continued to grow to todays Safaricom
network of over 30 million subscribers.

3) Point to point communication

As the term suggests, these are communications systems linking one point to
another one. One can describe a connection Nairobi – Mombasa as point to point.
A communication from John to James can be point to point.

4) Point to Multipoint.

This is when transmission from one source is directed to a number of receivers. e.g
broadcasting.

5) Broadcasting:

Broadcasting is a major service meant to inform, educate and entertain the public.
It is provided as radio broadcasting and TV broadcasting. Broadcasting is also a
form of point to multipoint as brought out in 4) above.
 6) Simplex Communication.

Simplex communication is a strictly one way communication like in some sms’s

we receive where one cannot reply to the sender.

7) Half Duplex

Half Duplex communication is a form of communication which is bothway but

one way at a time, Take Police Radio as an example a policeman will speak and
when through, he will announce so by saying over so that the other party can
speak. They will continue like this and at the end, one of them will terminate call
by telling the other party over and out.

8) Full Duplex:

In full duplex communication, communication is available bothways. However for

meaningful communication, one party has to wait for the other party to say his part
and then respond.

Limitations of Communications Systems Wk 3

Noise: Communications signal accumulates noise as it travels through a communications
channel and this may reach a level comparable to the signal level. At this stage, it will be
difficult to distinguish the signal from noise leading to difficulties in signal retrieval. This
provides a limitation as to how far a signal can travel through a communication channel
and still remain recognizable.

Bandwidth: We always need to communicate so much data or information but often,

the limit is how much information we can pack in a channel. Bandwidth is a limiting
factor in this case.

Attenuation: Whether through cable or radio signal attenuation will occur. On cables,
attenuation is proportional to cable length while in radio communication, attenuation
which is referred to as free space loss is proportional to distance squared and frequency
squared. This limits how far a communication signal can travel in a communication
channel and remain strong enough to be detected.

Time delay: This is another factor limiting a communication system. Speed of light is
3x 108 meters per second and this is the speed at which electromagnetic waves travel.
Where distances are reasonably large and where the media allows dispersion, some
frequencies will be delayed more than others causing distortions.

Even in non-dispersive media normal communication can be impaired if significant delay

is experienced in the channel.

Amplitude (Linear) Modulation Wk 4 ( see separate notes)

Baseband :-This is the low frequency modulating signal e.g voice signal which is 300Hz
to 4KHz, music about 20KHz and TV which is 4MHz, to modulate a high frequency
carrier signal in modulation.

Carrier signal is a high frequency signal about which a baseband signal is heterodyned.

Modulation Wk 5

Amplitude Modulation:

Double Sideband Full carrier (DSB-FC) , Power efficiency is m2 /2+m2 where m is the
modulation index Am/Ac Am being amplitude of the message signal and Ac being
amplitude of the carrier signal. 0<m< 1 or maximum of m is 1. If m> 1, distortion will
occur.

Maximum power efficiency occurs at m=1 which works out to be 1/3.This is because
information is carried on the sidebands and not on the carrier present in the transmitted
signal which has a high power. Since the signal is also double sideband, the bandwidth
required is twice the bandwidth of the message signal. (See separate notes)

Double Sideband suppressed carrier DSB -SC

In order to improve on power efficiency, the carrier frequency is suppressed using a

balanced modulator. From this process, the carrier signal is suppressed and only the two
sidebands are transmitted. Power efficiency is now 100% but this comes at a cost in
where coherent detection is required. The carrier signal left behind during transmission
need to be accurately regenerated at the receiver failing which the output signal will be
affected by a factor Cos(Δω) where Δω is the variation in carrier frequency generated at
the receiver.
.

Modulation Wk 6

Single Sideband (SSB),

When I presented DSB SC there was an improvement in the power efficiency up to

100%. The bandwidth utilization however remained twice the message bandwidth, It was
also noted that the two sidebands carry the same information and it is sufficient to
transmit all information by transmitting one sideband only. This can be achieved by
passing the DSB-SC signal through LPF or HPF to select lower sideband or upper
sideband for transmission as may be required.
Vestigial Sideband (VSB).

This is another important modulation system which is achieved by transmitting a

sideband and a vestige of the other sideband. This enables transmission of low frequency
signals including DC signals as required in the TV transmission, This system of
modulation is used in TV transmission..

The complex envelope (see separate notes)