Adama Science & Technology University

School of Electrical Engineering and Computing

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering

Introduction to Communication systems

(ECE- 3202)

Chapter 1
Introduction
 Introduction

❖The purpose of a communication system is to transmit information signals from

source→ destination.
❖Mostly, the message produced by the source is not electrical in nature.
❖Thus an input transducer is used to convert the message generated by the source in
to time varying electrical signal called the message signal.
❖By using another transducer at the receiver, the original message will be reproduced
at the user destination.
❖The message signal can be analog form or digital form
 Major Parts of Communication Systems

➢ In communication system there are three major parts

✓ Audio
✓ Video ✓ Microphone Transmitter Channel Receiver
✓ Data ✓ Camera

Fig. 1 Basic parts of communication system

✓ Involves modulation ✓ Transmission line ✓ Reproduce the original message signal

and amplification ✓ An optical fiber ✓ Uses demodulation and amplification
✓ Free space
 Classification of Communication Systems
➢ Three ways in which communication systems are classified

✓ Nature of information signal

✓ Unidirectional/bidirectional communication
✓ Technique of transmission

✓ Analog or digital systems. • Walkie Talky

✓ Simplex or half & full duplex systems,

▪ One-way communication ▪ Two-way communication

radio & TV Telephone

✓ Base band or modulated systems

 Typical Communication Systems

✓ Analog Communication System

❖ Modulated onto a carrier, which can be a
✓ sinusoidal signal
✓ pulse train
✓ light wave.
❖ Amplified and radiated from an antenna.

❖ Corrupted signal received from the channel are amplified

to a suitable level and
❖ filter to eliminate noise and interfering signals
❖ Recover the original message

Fig. 2 Block diagram of Analog communication Systems

 Typical Communication Systems

✓ Digital Communication System ➢ Source encoder converts source information in to digital

➢ Channel encoder encodes digital information
➢ Coded digital signal is then send to the digital modulator.
➢ Transmitter will amplify and sent the modulated signal

✓ Receives a very weak signal and amplifies.

✓ Demodulator separates coded digital from carrier.
✓ Channel decoder decodes the coded digital signal in its
un-coded form and detects and corrects errors.
✓ Source decoder finally converts the digital information
Fig. 3 Block diagram of Digital communication Systems back to the original signal.
 Comparison of Digital and Analog Communication Systems

❖ Digital communication has a number of advantages

➢ Relatively inexpensive digital circuits can be used
➢ Privacy is preserved by using data encryption
➢ Greater dynamic range is possible
➢ Data from voice, video, and data sources can be merged and transmitted over a common digital
transmission system.
➢ In long distance systems, noise does not accumulate from repeater to repeater.
➢ Errors in detected data are small, even when there is a large amount of noise on the received signal.
➢ Errors can often be corrected by the use of coding

❖ Digital communication also has disadvantages

➢ Generally more bandwidth is required

➢ Synchronization between the transmitter and receiver is required
 Frequency Spectrum
❑ The frequency spectrum is divided into segments for the purpose of classifying the various portions.
Name Frequency Wavelength Applications
Extremely Low frequency (ELF) 30-300Hz 107-106m Ac line frequency, low end of human hearing

Voice frequency (VF) 300-3000Hz 106-105m Normal range of human speech.

Very Low Frequency (VLF) 3-30KHz 105-104m Higher end of human hearing, sounds from musical instruments

Low frequency (LF) 30-300KHz 104-103m Used as sub carrier, and also in marine navigation.

Medium frequency (MF) 300-3000KHz 103-102m MW AM radio broadcasting

High frequency (HF) 3-30MHz 102-101m SW AM radio, Two way communications

Very High frequency (VHF) 30-300MHz 101-1m FM radio, VHF TV channels, marine and aeronautical Comn, Mobile

Ultra High frequency (UHF) 300-3000MHz 1-10-1m UHF TV channels, Cellular Mobile,

Super High frequency (SHF) 3-30GHz 10-1-10-2m Microwave frequency used in satellite, radar and long distance comn.

Extremely High frequency (EHF) 30-300GHz 10-2-10-3m Limited activities so far

Infrared - 0.7 – 10 m In astronomy to detect stars, for guidance in weapons, TV remote control.
The Visible Spectrum - 0.4 –0.8 m Optical communication
Electronic Communication Applications
Application of
communication

Simplex (One way) Duplex (Two way)

AM and FM broadcasting
Telephone
TV broadcasting, Cable TV
Two way radio
Facemile (Fax)
Radar
Wireless remote control
Sonar
Pagers, Radio astronomy
Amateur radio
Navigation and direction finding
Citizen radio
Telemetry,
Data communication
surveillance
Local area network
Music services
 Fundamental Limitations of Communication Systems

❖ The goal of a communication system engineer is to design systems that provide high quality service for
the maximum number of user with the smallest cost and least usage of limited resources.
❖ Engineers attempt to design communication systems that transmit information at a high rate, with high
performance, using the minimum amount of transmitted power and bandwidth.
❖ The most significant limitations on the performance of communication system are
✓ noise
✓ distortion
✓ bandwidth.
❖ Usually, the transmitter and the receiver are carefully designed so as to minimize the effects of noise and
distortion on the quality of reception.
 Con’d…

❖ Bandwidth of a communication system is the range of frequencies that it can pass through.
❖ The information capacity of a communication system is a measure of how much information can be carried
through the system in a given period of time. It is a function of system bandwidth.

❑ Is it possible to invent a system with no bit error at the output even when we have noise introduced in to
the channel?

➢ Shannon-Hartely capacity theorem, according to which digital communication systems that attain as close
to zero error probability as described are theoretically possible, provided that the rate of information
transmitted is less than the capacity of the channel C.
➢ In other words, Shannon showed that if the rate of information R (in b/s) is less than C, the probability of
error would approach zero.
 Con’d…

➢ The channel capacity C (in b/s) could be calculated by using the equation given below which is referred to as
Shannon equation.

 S 
C = B log 2 1 + 
 N

➢ B is bandwidth in Hz, S/N is signal-to-noise power ratio and C is the channel capacity.
➢ Signal-to-noise power ratio indicates the measure of noise relative to information signal

❖ In analog systems the optimum system might be defined as the one that achieves the largest signal to noise ratio
at the receiver output subject to design constraints such as channel bandwidth and transmitted power.
❖ Is it possible to design a system with infinite signal to noise ratio at the output when noise is introduced by
the channel? The answer is of course no.
 Signal Distortion in Transmission

➢ A signal transmission system is the electrical channel between an

information source and destination.
➢ These systems range in complexity from a simple pair of wires to a
sophisticated laser-optics link.
➢ But all transmission systems have two physical attributes of particular
concern in communication:
✓ internal power dissipation that reduces the size of the output
signal, and
✓ energy storage that alters the shape of the output (distortion).
 Con’d…

❖ Distortionless Transmission

✓ Distortionless transmission means that the output signal has the same "shape" as the input.
✓ Analytically, we have distortionless transmission if

➢ The properties of a distortionless system are easily found by examining the output spectrum
 Con’d…

❖ For the purpose of studying distortion effects on various signals, we'll define three major types of
distortion:

❖ The first two types can be grouped under the general designation of linear distortion, described in terms
of the transfer function of a linear system.
❖ For the third type, the nonlinearity precludes the existence of a transfer function.
 Linear Distortion

❖ Linear distortion includes any amplitude or delay distortion associated with a linear transmission
system.
❖ Amplitude distortion is easily described in the frequency domain;
✓ it means simply that the output frequency components are not in correct proportion.
✓ Caused by |H(f)| not being constant with frequency,
✓ Amplitude distortion is sometimes called frequency distortion.
❖ The most common forms of amplitude distortion are excess attenuation or enhancement of
extreme high or low frequencies in the signal spectrum.
❖ For illustration, a suitably simple test signal is x(t) = cos(wot) - 1/3cos(3wot) + 1/5cos(5wot), a
rough approximation to a square wave sketched below in fig 4.
 Con’d…

❖ If the low-frequency or high-frequency component is attenuated by one-half, the resulting outputs are as
shown in Fig. 5.
❖ As expected, loss of the high-frequency term reduces the "sharpness" of the waveform.

Fig 4.: Test signal x (t) = cos wot - 1 / 3 cos 3wot Fig 5.: (a) Low frequency attenuated; (b) high Frequency
+ 1 /5 cos 5wot attenuated
 Con’d…

➢ A common area of confusion is constant time delay versus constant phase shift.
➢ Constant time delay for distortion less. Constant phase shift, causes distortion.
➢ Suppose a system has the constant phase shift not equal to 0° or + m180°.
➢ Then each signal frequency component will be delayed by 𝜃Τ2𝜋 cycles of its own frequency ‘’constant phase shift’’.
➢ But the time delays will be different, the frequency components will be scrambled in time, and distortion will result.
➢ That constant phase shift does give distortion is simply illustrated by the test signal of Fig. 4 and shifting each
component by one-fourth cycle =-90°.

➢ Whereas the input was roughly a square wave,

the output will look like the triangular wave in
Fig. 6.
Fig 6.: Test signal with constant phase shift =-90°
 Nonlinear Distortion

❖ A system having nonlinear elements cannot be described by a transfer function.

❖ Instead, the instantaneous values of input and output are related by a curve or function y(t) = T[x(t)], commonly
called the transfer characteristic.
❖ Fig. 7 shows a representative transfer characteristic; the flattening out of the output for large input excursions is
the familiar saturation-and-cut off effect of transistor amplifiers.
❖ We'll consider only memoryless devices, for which the transfer characteristic is a complete description.
❖ Under small-signal input conditions, it may be possible to linearize the transfer characteristic in a piecewise
fashion, as shown by the thin lines in the figure.
❖ The more general approach is a polynomial approximation to the curve, of the form

and the higher powers of x(t) in this equation give rise to the nonlinear distortion.
 Con’d…

❖ Even though we have no transfer function, the output spectrum can be found, at least in a formal way, by
transforming the above equation.
❖ Specifically, invoking the convolution theorem,

Fig 7.: Transfer characteristic of a nonlinear device

 Equalization

➢ Linear distortion-both amplitude and delay is theoretically curable through the use of equalization networks.
➢ The Fig 8. below shows an equalizer Heq(f) in cascade with a distorting transmission channel HC( f ) .

Channel Equalizer

Fig. 8 Channel with equalization for linear distortion

❖ The overall transfer function is

❖ The final output will be distortion-less if H C ( f ) H eq (f) = Ke -jwt d

Ke -jwt d
❖ Therefore, we require that H eq (f) = where
HC ( f )
 Companding

➢ Although nonlinear distortion has no perfect cure, it can be minimized by careful design.
➢ The basic idea is to make sure that the signal does not exceed the linear operating range of the channel's
transfer characteristic.
➢ Utilizes two nonlinear signal processors, a compressor at the input and an expander at the output, as
shown in Fig 9.

Fig. 9 Companding System

➢ A compressor has greater amplification at low signal levels than at high signal levels, and thereby compresses
the range of the input signal.
➢ The expander has a characteristic that perfectly complements the compressor so the expanded output is
proportional to the input, as desired.
➢ The joint use of compressing and expanding is called companding.