Introduction to Communication

Systems

LESSON-1
 Communication System
• Communication is the process of exchanging information between
source and destination(sink)
• Routing of information requires a communication link - Channel to
transmit information between source and destination.
• In past ages communication is carried over by runners, torches,
pigeons etc. Such mediums are now obsolete in modern
communication systems.
• Communication engineering deals with transmitting information
through electrical signals, i.e. information or message such as
spoken words, photographs, live scenes and sounds are first
converted to electrical signals before being transmitted on
communication link to receiver or destination.
• Electrical communication is reliable, fast and economical at the
same time. Modern communication has applications such as e-
banking, e-shopping, teleconferencing etc a possible reality.
 Block Schematic of Basic
Communication System

Recovered Baseband signal

Baseband signal

Figure: Above depiction shows subsystems of a basic communication system in which

sending receiving and processing of information is in electrical form.
 Constituents of communication systems

(i) Source (input message)

Source originates a message in non-electrical form such as human
voice, live scene, sound, data etc.
Input message can be:

 Analog – A signal whose amplitude can take on any value in continous

range i.e. analog signal amplitude can have infinite number of values

 Digital – amplitude limited to finite set of values e.g. binary signals

have only two values a digital signal with M symbols is called M-ary
signal (M = 2 is a binary signal).
Analog Signals
 An analog signal is a smoothly and continuously varying voltage or
current. Examples are:
Sine wave
Voice
Video (TV)

Figure : Analog signals (a) Sine wave “tone.” (b) Voice.

• Digital Signals
 Digital signals change in steps or in discrete increments.
 Most digital signals use binary or two-state codes. Examples are:
 Telegraph (Morse code)
 Serial binary code (used in computers)

Figure: Digital signals (a) Telegraph (Morse code). (b) Serial binary code.
(ii) Input Transducer:
A device that converts energy from one form to another.
Convert an input signal into an electrical waveform.
Example: microphone converts human voice into electrical signal
referred to as the baseband signal or message signal.

Baseband/message
Input message
input signal
transducer

Eg. voice microphone Electrical signal

Principle: sound moves the cone and the attached coil of wire moves in the field of a magnet. The
generator effect produces a voltage which "images" the sound pressure variation - characterized as a
pressure microphone.
(iii) Transmitter (Tx):
Modifies or converts the baseband signal into format appropriate for
efficient channel of transmission.
Example: If the channel is fiber optic cable, the transmitter converts the
baseband signal into light frequency and the transmitted signal is light.
Transmitter also use to reformat/reshape the signal so that the channel
will not distort is as much - Signal Conditioning using a pre emphasizer which is a low
pass filter which limits the signal bandwidth

Modulation takes place in the transmitter. It involves static variation of

amplitude, phase or frequency of the carrier in accordance to a message
signal - Modulation is based on the principle of translating low frequency baseband signal
to a higher frequency spectrum using modulators eg AM,FM modulators if baseband signal is
analog otherwise digital modulation schemes are employed.

Transmitters may also include other subsystems for example sampler,

quantizer and coder for transmission of digitized signals.
Baseband/message transmitted signal
signal Tx
Optical signal
Baseband Modulated
signal signal
Voltage Power Amplifier To channel
Modulated Stage
s(t) x(t) Amplifier Stages Stages

Amplifier Stages
c(t)

Carrier
Oscillator

Fig: Block Schematic Representation of an Analog Transmitter

The power of the modulated signal is amplified enough to reach the receiver stage of
communication system before transmitted on channel.
(iv) Channel:
A medium through which the transmitter output is sent.
Divided into 2 basic groups:
•Guided – eg. wire, coaxial cable, optical fiber
•Unguided – eg. Wireless broadcast channel, mobile radio channel,
satellite etc.
Introduces distortion, noise and interference – in the channel,
transmitted signal is attenuated and distorted. Signal attenuation increase
along with the length of channel.
This results in corrupted transmitted signal received by receiver, Rx

Transmitted signal Received signal

channel

Distortion &
Noise

Communication channel can be modeled as a filter that changes the characteristic spectrum of
baseband signal. This change is termed as channel distortion which is a result of different amplitude
attenuation and phase shift of each frequency component of baseband signal.
• The signal is not only distorted by channel but also contaminated by
additive noise, which is random and unpredictable.
• Causes:
a) External – man made nearby noises, automobile ignition
radiation, florescent light, natural noise from lightning, intergalactic
radiation etc.

b)Internal - thermal motion of electrons in conductors,diffusion or

recombination of charged carriers in semiconductor electronics etc

• Additive noise have the effect of reducing intelligibility of

recovered baseband signal and to reduce signal-to-noise ratio.

• Proper care techniques (EMC&I practices such as shielding) may

minimize noise level to a certain extent but it can never eliminate its
effect on channel completely.
 (v) Receiver (Rx)
Receiver decodes the received signal back to message signal – i.e it
attempts to translate the received signal back into the original
message signal sent by the source.
Reprocess the signal received from the channel by undoing the signal
modification made by transmitter and the channel – RF filtering,
amplitude limiting for example in FM etc
Extract the desired signal from the received signal and convert it to
a form that suitable for the output transducer – demodulator.
Demodulation takes place in the receiver.

(vi) Output transducer

Convert electrical signals to its original waveform eg loudspeaker.

Received signal Output signal Output Output message

Rx
transducer
speaker voice 13
 Modes of communication

i. Broadcasting
Involves the use of a single powerful transmitter transmit to many
receivers. Demodulation takes place in the receiver.
Information-bearing signals flow in one direction
Eg. TV and radio (Simplex)

ii. Point to point Communication

Where a communication process takes place over a link between a
single transmitter and a receiver.
Information-bearing signals flow in bidirectional, which requires the
use of a transmitter and receiver at each end of the link
Eg. Telephone (Full Duplex) and walkie talkie (Half Duplex)
 A/D and D/A
 Analog to Digital conversion; Digital to Analog
conversion
 Gateway from the communication device to the channel
 Can be achieved by Sampling and Quantization
 A/D and D/A (cont)
Quantization
 Modulation

Modulation is the process of converting data into

radio waves by adding information to an electronic
or optical carrier signal
 Why Modulate

 Antenna size is a major concern

 The radiating antenna should be one tenth or more of the
wavelength
 For a speech signal (100 to 3000 Hz) corresponding
wavelength will be 100 to 3000 km
 For 1MHz signal you need antenna size of only 30 meter
λ=v/f
 Where v = 3x108 m/s
 Why Modulate

Simultaneous Transmission of several

Signals

 Frequency Division Multiplex (FDM)

 Time Division Multiplex (TDM)

 Why Modulate

Avoid mixing of Signals

Allows Multiplexing
Improves quality of signal reception
Increase the range of Communication
Allows adjustment of BW
 SNR, Bandwidth and Rate of Communication

1. Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR):

SNR is defined as the ratio of signal power to noise power. Noise
distorts the signal and accumulated along the path.
The dB value is calculated by taking the log of the ratio of the
measured or calculated power (PS) wrt a reference power (PN) level.
Commonly referred to as the power ratio form for dB
signal power (W ) Ps Ps  Vs2 / Rin 
 SNRdB  10 log  10 log 2 dB
noise power (W ) Pn Pn  Vn / Rout 
It is normally measured in Decibel (dB), defined as 10 times the
algorithm (to base 10) of the power ratio.
Eg.: SNR of 10, 100 and 1000 correspond to 10, 20, and 30dBs,
respectively.
dBm is a dB level using a 1mW reference.
Signal power, S related to the quality of transmission.
Example – A receiver produces a noise power of
200mW with no signal. The output level increases
to 5 W when a signal is applied. Calculate SNR as
in dB.
2 Bandwidth

 Bandwidth is that portion of the spectrum occupied by a

signal.
 Specifically, bandwidth is the difference between the upper
and lower frequency limits of the signal or the equipment
operation range.
 Figure below, shows the bandwidth of the voice frequency
range from 300 to 3000Hz. The upper frequency is f2 and the
lower frequency is f1. The bandwidth, then is 2700Hz
BW = f2 – f1

Bandwidth is the frequency range

over which equipment operates or
that portion of the spectrum
occupied by the signal. This is the
voice frequency bandwidth.
 Bandwidth (B) of a channel is the range of frequencies that it
can transmit with reasonable fidelity.
 Bandwidth of an information signal is the difference between the
highest and lowest frequencies contained in the information.
 Bandwidth of a communication channel is the difference
between the highest and lowest frequencies that the channel will
allow to pass through it (ie: its pass band).
 Data rate proportional to bandwidth
 Rate of Communication
 Rate of information transmission is directly proportional with its
bandwidth
 Shannon limit for information capacity, C
C = B log2 (1 + SNR)

Where C = information capacity (bps)

B = bandwidth (Hz)
SNR = signal to noise ratio (no unit)
This is the upper limit for channel capacity for given bandwidth B
and signal-to-noise ration SNR for which channel can pass
Information with probability of error approximately equal to zero
Example 1 - For a standard telephone circuit with a SNR of 30dB
and a bandwidth of 2.7 kHz, determine the Shannon limit for
information capacity.

Example 2 – The telephone channel has a bandwidth of about

3kHz. Calculate the capacity of a telephone channel that has an
SNR of 1023.