LECTURE 1 INTRODUCTION TO

COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

By Tafari Lemma
 OUTLINE
▪ Introduction
▪ Elements of communication system
▪ Frequency Spectrum

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 INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

• What is a communication system? Any means for

transmission of information.
• Types of communication systems:
– wireline & wireless, digital & analog, point-to-
point & broadcasting, low frequency/high
frequency etc.
• Examples:
– cell phone
– WiFi
– Internet, optical fiber systems
– TV, radio
– remote control, wireless 3
 COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS
 A communication system is composed of the
following:

Source
Input Output
Transducer Transmitter Channel Receiver
Transducer Desti
nation

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 INPUT TRANSDUCER
 Source: Analog or digital
 Example: Speech, music, written text

 Input Transducer: Converts the message produced by a

source to a form suitable for the communication
system.
 Example:

Speech waves→Microphone→Voltage

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TRANSMITTER
 Couple the message to the channel
 Operations: Amplification, Modulation
 Modulation encodes message into amplitude,
phase or frequency of carrier signal (AM, PM,
FM)
 Advantages:
 Reduce noise and interference
 Multiplexing
 Channel Assignment
 Examples: TV station, radio station, web server

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CHANNEL
 Physical medium that does the transmission
 Examples: Air, wires, coaxial cable, radio wave,
laser beam, fiber optic cable
 Every channel introduces some amount of
distortion, noise and interference

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 RECEIVER

• Main function: to recover the message from the

received signal
• Somewhat inverse of the transmitter function
• Demodulation: inverse of the modulation
• Operates in the presence of noise & interference.
Hence, some distortions are unavoidable.
• Some other functions: filtering, suppression of noise
& interference
OUTPUT TRANSDUCER
 Converts electrical signal into the form desired
by the system
 Examples: Loudspeakers, PC

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FREQUENCY SPECTRUM
 Most precious resource in communications is
“frequency spectrum”
 The “frequency spectrum” has to be shared by a
large number of users and applications:
 AM Radio, FM Radio, TV, cellular telephony,
wireless local-area-networks, satellite, air traffic
control

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FREQUENCY SPECTRUM
 The frequency spectrum has to be managed for a
particular physical medium
 The spectrum for “over-the-air” communications
is allocated by international communications
organization
 International Telecommunications Union (ITU)

 Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

designates and licenses frequency bands in the
US.

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 FREQUENCY SPECTRUM EXAMPLE
• Cell phone: 1-2 GHz
• Cordless phone: 43-50 MHz, 900 MHz, 2.4 and 5.8 GHz.
• Cable phone: 300-3400 Hz
• WiFi: 2.5, 5 GHz
• VDSL-2 (Internet over phone cable): 30 kHz-30MHz
• TV (satellite): 10-12 GHz
• TV (cable/broadcast): 50-950 MHz
• AM broadcast: 300kHz – 1.5 MHz
• FM broadcast: 80-110 MHz
• Optical: 100s THz
 MATHEMATICAL MODELS OF CHANNELS

System-level model: linear time-invariant system

Detailed model: based on electromagnetics (i.e., radio

wave propagation)
14 END OF CHAPTER 1
THANK YOU