SPREAD SPECTRUM

(Point-to-point communications)
Characteristics
 The bandwidth is much greater than the information rate in
bits/sec.
 The signal is pseudorandom, this makes the signals appear
similar to a random noise and difficult to demodulated by
receivers other than the intended ones.
Applications
 Suppressing the effects of interference due to jamming,
interference from other users of the channel and self
interference due to multipath propagation.
 Hiding a signal by transmitting it at low power and, thus
making it difficult for unintended listener to detect in the
presence of background noise.
 Achieving message privacy in the presence of other
listeners.
Block Diagram of
Spread Spectrum Digital Communications
Pseudorandom Noise
The Pseudorandom Noise
 The PN is a pattern of bits that changes almost randomly.
The randomness should be sufficient to minimize the
probability to accidental duplication of the code.
 The Pseudorandom sequences are typically generated by
a maximum length shift register having a memory length r.
 The pseudorandom sequences can simply be mapped to
generate the pseudorandom noise.
PN Generator

8-bit shift register

PN out

clock
Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum
An example of a frequency hop pattern
The Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum

 The available channel bandwidth is subdivided into a

number of contiguous frequency slots.
 The selection of the frequency slots is made pseudo
randomly based on the output of a PN generator.
 FSK modulation with noncoherent detection is usually
employed with FHSS.
FH Rates
 The FH rate is selected to be either equal or greater than
the symbol rate
 Fast-hopped signal happens when there are multiple hops
per symbol
 Slow-hopped signals happens when the symbol rate is
equal to the FH rate.
 FHSS Transmitter
FSK
SERIAL BINARY DATA
MODULATOR

FREQUENCY
SYNTHESIZER

PSN
GENERATOR

CLOCK
Frequency Synthesizer
 The rate of the Frequency synthesizer frequency is higher
than the data rate
 The frequency synthesizer changes frequencies four times
for each bit time of the serial binary data
 The time that a frequency synthesizer remains on a single
frequency is called dwell time.
 The frequency synthesizer puts out a pseudorandom sine
wave to the mixer. The mixer will then creates a new
carrier frequency for each dwell time.
Types of FHSS
 Block Hopping
 The carrier frequency is pseudo randomly hopped in every
signalling interval.
 The M information-bearing tones are contiguous and separated
in frequency by 1/T (where T is the signalling interval)
 Independent Tone Hopping
 Less vulnerable to some jamming strategies
 The M possible tones are assigned widely dispersed frequency
slots
 Block Diagram of Block Hopping FHSS

FSK FSK
Encoder Mixer Channel Mixer Decoder
Modulator Demodulator

Information
Sequence Frequency Frequency Output
Synthesizer Synthesizer Time
sync

PN PN
Sequence Sequence
Generator Generator
 Block Diagram of Independent tone FHSS

Frequency FSK
Encoder Channel Decoder
Synthesizer Demodulator
Information
Sequence PN Frequency
Sequence Output
Synthesizer
Generator Time
sync

PN
Sequence
Generator
Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
The Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
 The Pseudorandom sequence is impressed on the transmitted
signal directly on to the coded bits.
 One bit time for a pseudorandom code is called chip or chip
interval.
 The rate of the code is called chipping rate.
 The chipping rate is faster than the data rate.
 Since chipping rate is higher than the data rate, the modulator
can produce multiple widely spaced sidebands whose strength
is such that the complete signal takes up a great deal of the
spectrum, thus the signal is spread.
 DSSS can use a BPSK modulator using a balanced modulator.
Other forms of PSK may also be used, even QAM.
 Block diagram of a DSSS Transmitter
Balance
PN Generator Mod-2 Adder
Modulator

cos ωt

Data In Encoder QPSK

Adder
Signal

sin ωt

Balance
PN Generator Mod-2 Adder
Modulator
Modulo-2 Addition
 DSSS can use Modulo-2 Addition in impress the PN sequence
on the transmitted signal.
𝑎𝑖 = 𝑏𝑖 ⊕ 𝑐𝑖
𝑎𝑖 = 0ห𝑏𝑖 = 𝑐𝑖 and 𝑎𝑖 = 1ห𝑏𝑖 ≠ 𝑐𝑖
 Modulo-2 may also be represented as multiplication of two
waveforms
𝑔 𝑡 = 2𝑏𝑖 − 1 2𝑐𝑖 − 1 𝑔 𝑡 − 𝑖𝑇𝑐
 Both cases yields the same PSK signal at the output.
 Although the first is easier to implement, for the purposes of
demodulation, it is much convenient to use the multiplicative
form
FHSS vs. DSSS
 FHSS systems is not as strict as in DSSS in its timing
requirements
 In DSSS, timing and synchronization must be established
within a fraction of the chip interval.
𝑇 ≈ 1ൗ𝑊
 In the case of FHSS, the time spent in transmitting a signal
in a particular frequency slot is
1ൗ ≫ 1ൗ
𝐵 𝑊
5 minute break…
Other types of Spread Spectrum
Time Hopping
 The time interval, which is chosen to be much larger than
the reciprocal of the information rate, is subdivided into a
large number of time slots.
 The coded information symbols are transmitted in a pseudo
randomly selected time slot as a block of one or more
code words.
 PSK may be used to transmit the coded bits.
Hybrid DS/FH
 May be implemented by combining DS, FH and TH
 A PN sequence is used in combination with Frequency
Hopping
 The signal transmitted on a single hop consists of a DS
spread Spectrum signal which is demodulated coherently
Synchronization of
spread spectrum systems
Time Synchronization
 Time synchronization of the receiver in spread spectrum
systems is separated in two phases:
1. Acquisition
2. Tracking
Acquisition
 The usual procedure in establishing initial synchronization is
for the transmitter to send a known pseudorandom data
sequence to the receiver.
 The receiver is continuously in search model looking for this
sequence to establish initial synchronization.
 In principle, matched filter or cross correlation are optimum
methods for establishing initial synchronization.
The Matched Filter
 A filter matched to the known data waveform generated
from the known pseudorandom sequence continuously looks
for exceedence of a predetermined threshold.
 When this occurs, initial synchronization is established and
the demodulator enters data received mode.
Sliding Correlator
 The cross correlation is performed over the time interval
NTc, and compares the output with a threshold to
determine if the known signal sequence is present.
 If the threshold is not exceeded, then the correlation
process is exceeded.
 The operation is carried out until a signal is detected or
until search has been performed over the time uncertainty
interval, (which in this case, the process is then repeated.)
Frequency Uncertainty
 Another aspect of initial synchronization usually related to
Doppler effect.
 If the transmitter and/or the receiver are mobile the
relative velocity between them results in a Doppler
frequency shift in the received signal relative to the
transmitted signal.
 A frequency search method is usually carried out to assess
the change.
Tracking
 The tracking maintains the PN code generator at the
receiver in synchronization with the incoming signal.
 The tracking includes both the fine chip synchronization
and carrier phase tracking
 The commonly used tracking loop for DS is the delay
locked loop, another is the tau-dither loop.
5 minute break…
References
 Digital Communications by Proakis
 Electronic Communications by Tomasi
 Communication Electronics by Frenzel
 Fundamentals of Wireless Communications by Tse and
Vswanath