ECE 141 Lecture 1:

Introduction to Digital
Communication Systems
Building Blocks of Digital Communication Systems, Sampling and Quantization, Pulse Code
Modulation

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 1

 Review:What is
Communication?

“In the most fundamental sense,

communication involves implicitly the
transmission of information from
one point to another.” - Haykin
▪ A communication system facilitates the transfer of information

2
 Basic Communication System
Elements

ENCODER CHANNEL DECODER

SOURCE DESTINATION
Attenuation, Noise,
Distortion, Interference

Elements given by Application/Physical Environment:

❑ Source
▪ Generates the information/message to be sent
▪ Represented as signal (physical manifestation of information)

❑ Channel
▪ Abstraction of the physical medium (light, sound, EM wave, optical fiber, etc.)
▪ Channel Impairments: Attenuation, Noise, Distortion, Interference

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 3

 Communication System:
Engineering Perspective

ENCODER CHANNEL DECODER

SOURCE DESTINATION
Attenuation, Noise,
Distortion, Interference

Communication System Engineer’s Design:

❑ Encoder
▪ Converts information source to some form of physical signal suitable for transmission
over the channel
▪ Functions: Sampling, Quantization, Compression, Error-correction, Modulation, etc.

❑ Decoder
▪ Reconstructs the message from the received signal (after channel block)
▪ Operates under certain detection criteria and/or user requirement

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A Finer View of Digital
Communication Systems
Message Signal
waveform Bits Waveform
Source Channel
SOURCE
Encoder Encoder

Binary NOISY CHANNEL

Interface

Source Channel
DESTINATION
Decoder Decoder
Bits
❑ A digital communication system uses digital sequences (bits) as interface
between source coding and channel coding
❑ Why Separate Source coding and Channel coding?
▪ Digital hardware is cheap, reliable, and scalable
▪ System is more manageable if source and channel coding is designed independently
▪ Source-channel separation can attain optimal transmission efficiency

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Building Blocks of Source
Coding

(Input) s[m] dm Binary { bi }

Message s (t ) Sampler Quantizer
Encoder
Waveform
Continuous-valued Discrete-valued Binary
Sequence Sequence Interface
(Output)
sˆ[m] Look-up dˆm Binary
Message sˆ(t ) Filter
Table Decoder
{ bˆi }
Waveform

Source
Coding

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 6

 Building Blocks of Channel
Coding

Error Correcting { ci } Symbol { ui } xb (t ) x(t )

{ bi } Up
Code Encoder Mapper Pulse Shaper
Converter

Binary Symbol Passband

Baseband
Interface Coded Bits
Sequence Waveform
CHANNEL
Waveform

{ cˆi } { uˆi } yb (t ) y (t )
{ bˆi }
Error Correcting Symbol Down
Code Decoder Demapper Sampler+Filter
Converter

Channel Coding

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 7

 Conversion from Message
Waveform to Analog Sequence
Sampler ❑ Consider a band-limited message
waveform s(t) with bandwidth W
s (t ) ssampled (t )
Analog
❑ s(t) is sampled at a uniform sampling
Message sequence rate 1/Ts
Waveform Impulse Train
Generator ❑ Analog sequence in time-domain can
be mathematically expressed as:


s(t) m(t-mTs) = ssampled(t) ssampled (t ) =  s[m] (t − mT )

m =−
s

where s[m] = s (mTs )

0 0 0 ❑ Since a dirac delta function has unit
area, think of s[m] as its “mass” at
time mTs

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 8

Conversion from Message
Waveform to Analog Sequence
❑ Fourier Series of Impulse Train:
Area under the curve of
+ Ts / 2 delta is one
1
ck =
Ts   (t ) exp(− j 2kt / T )dt
−Ts / 2
s

1
= , for all k
Ts

❑ Applying Fourier coefficients to synthesis equation, we get:

1 +
1 +
 k
x (t ) =
Ts

k = −
exp( j 2kt / Ts ) ⎯⎯→F
X  ( f ) =
Ts
  f −
k = − 

Ts 

Still an impulse train in the frequency domain but with 1/Ts scaling and 1/Ts
repetition rate!

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 9

Conversion from Message
Waveform to Analog Sequence
❑ RECALL: Pointwise multiplication in time domain →
Convolution in frequency domain
❑ Mathematical description of sampled signal in frequency
domain: 
1  k 
S sampled ( f ) = S ( f )  f − 
Ts k =−  Ts 
where S ( f ) = F {s (t )}

❑ Graphical Illustration (using Sifting Property):

S(f) (1/Ts)k(t-k/Ts) = Ssampled(f)
*

0 -1/Ts 0 1/Ts 0 1/Ts

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 10

 Information Recovery from
Received Sequence
Signal ❑ If the original signal is band-
Reconstruction
limited, it can be recovered using a
sˆsampled (t ) LPF sˆ(t )
lowpass filter with base bandwidth
Message
ranging from 0 to B
Analog
sequence waveform

❑ In time domain, lowpass filtering

becomes convolution of samples
Ssampled(f) with sinc function:
... ...
-1/Ts -B -W 0 +W +B 1/Ts
Sinc pulses simply track the change
between signal samples
 t − mTs  F
m s[ m ]sinc   ⎯→ S sampled ( f )Ts rect ( fTs )
 Ts 

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 11

Information Recovery from
Received Sequence
❑ Q: From EEE35, what happens when we sample the bandlimited
signal at less than twice its highest frequency component?
❑ A: ALIASING!
Message replicas will overlap in frequency domain,
thus causing distortion (Spectral Folding)
Ssampled(f)

... ...
-W +W
-2/Ts -1/Ts 0 1/Ts 2/Ts

❑ Minimum separation in frequency domain between replica is 2W

(This is your Nyquist Sampling Theorem! ☺)

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 12

 Sampling Process in Practice
❑ In practice, sampling is implemented
by train of rectangular pulses with
some nonzero pulse width   Ts
s (t ) xb , natural (t )

Message Naturally-sampled
❑ NATURAL SAMPLING: Multiply
Waveform Rectangular waveform the message with rectangular pulses.
Pulse Train That is,

xb , flat −top (t ) = s (t )  
m =−
p (t − mTs )

where p (t ) = rect (t /  )

❑ NOTE: You may think of natural

sampling as sampler cascaded with some
pulse shaping function block

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 13

Sampling Process in Practice
❑ Frequency domain of sampled signal using natural sampling:

  k   k
X b , flat −top ( f ) = S ( f )  F  pulse train =  A sinc   
S f − 
k =− Ts  Ts   Ts 

❑ Illustration:
Scaled by Aτ/Ts

... ...
f

❑ Original message waveform can be reconstructed using appropriate

lowpass filtering
❑ REMARK: Sampled signal occupies large bandwidth → Main purpose
of pulse shaping is to limit the bandwidth of digital transmission

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 Discretizing the Sampled
Signal
❑ Continuous-valued amplitude of
dm
analog sequences are mapped to
s (t )
Amax finite discrete set of signal levels
(Quantization)
❑ Since mapping is from infinite
set to a finite set, there will be
ambiguities in quantization
process
2Amax ❑ Quantization error is computed
L as:
− Amax
qm = d m − s (mTs )

❑ Cannot be removed but can be

minimized

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 15

 Discretizing the Sampled
Signal
❑ From the figure beside,
quantization error falls between:
dm s (t ) v v 2A
Amax −  qm  , where v = max
2 2 L

❑ Assuming error is equally likely to

lie anywhere on the range, the
mean square quantization error
(MSQE) is:
2Amax
v / 2
( v )
2
1
v −v / 2
L
− Amax
q =
2
q dq =
2

12
❑ REMARK: Dependent only on
quantization step!

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 16

Discretizing the Sampled
Signal
❑ Quantization error can be treated as some form of “noise”
that corrupts our original message waveform

❑ If MSQE gives the “noise power” of quantization error, we can

define the signal-to-quantization-noise ratio (SQNR) as:

S0 s 2 (t ) 12
SQNR = = = Psignal
N 0 q (t ) ( v )
2 2

❑ NOTE: The above expression for SQNR was obtained by

assuming that the quantization step is uniform within the
range of the signal

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 17

 Discretizing the Sampled
Signal
❑ Consider a message waveform with
high crest factor
❑ Mathematical Expression of Crest
Factor:
| x(t ) |max Ppeak
CF = =
E[ x 2 (t )] Pave

❑ If quantization step is uniform, high

quantization error will occur at low
amplitude signal levels
❑ SOLUTION: Non-uniform
Quantization! ☺
❑ PROBLEM: Non-uniform
Quantizers are Expensive! 

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 18

 Simple Implementation of
Non-uniform Quantizers
❑ Use of COMPANDING techniques with uniform quantizer:

dˆm sˆ(t )
Uniform Reconstruction
s (t ) Sampler Compressor
Quantizer
dm Expander
Filter

❑ Companding Algorithms (|m| is the input amplitude, |v| is the

output amplitude):
▪ µ-law technique: ▪ A-law technique:
 A  m  m 1
   , 0  
1  m  1 + ln( A)  m peak  m peak A
| v |= ln 1 +   | v |= 
ln(1 +  )  m peak   1   Am   1 m
1 + ln( A)  1 + ln    ,  1
 m  A m
   peak   peak

ECE 141: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS 19

 Comparison of Companding
Algorithms
❑ µ-law ❑ A-law

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From Waveform to Bits
❑ Pulse Code Modulation (PCM):
Binary encoder maps the discrete
set of values to corresponding
binary codewords
❑ Minimum number of bits/symbol
to faithfully map the values:
b  log 2 ( L)
❑ Example in the figure performs
Natural Binary Mapping
❑ PCM is a type of Waveform
Coding Technique (Conversion of
an analog waveform to a coded
pulses)

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