Department of Electrical Engineering. COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad.

PART 2: PHYSICAL LAYER & MEDIA CHAPTER 3

DATA AND SIGNALS

Note

To be transmitted, data must be transformed to electromagnetic signals.

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

Analog and Digital

Data can be analog or digital. The term analog data refers to information that is continuous; digital data refers to information that has discrete states. Analog data take on continuous values. Digital data take on discrete values.

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

Note

Signals can be analog or digital. Analog signals can have an infinite number of values in a range; digital signals can have only a limited number of values.

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

Comparison of Analog & Digital Signal

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

Periodic Analog Signals

Periodic analog signals can be classified as simple or composite. A simple periodic analog signal, a sine wave, cannot be decomposed into simpler signals. A composite periodic analog signal is composed of multiple sine waves.

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

Sine Wave
Sine wave can be represented by three parameters: Peak Amplitude. Frequency. Phase

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

Two signals with the same phase and frequency, but different amplitudes

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

Two signals with the same amplitude and phase, but different frequencies

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

Note

Frequency and period are the inverse of each other.

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

10

Units of period and frequency

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

11

Example
The period of a signal is 100 ms. What is its frequency in kilohertz?

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

12

Solution First we change 100 ms to seconds, and then we calculate the frequency from the period (1 Hz = 10-3 kHz).

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

13

Note

Frequency is the rate of change with respect to time. Change in a short span of time means high frequency. Change over a long span of time means low frequency.
EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks 14

Note

If a signal does not change at all, its frequency is zero. If a signal changes instantaneously, its frequency is infinite.

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

15

Note

Phase describes the position of the waveform relative to time 0.

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

16

Three sine waves with the same amplitude and frequency, but different phases

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

17

Note

A single-frequency sine wave is not useful in data communications; we need to send a composite signal, a signal made of many simple sine waves.

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

18

Note

According to Fourier analysis, any composite signal is a combination of simple sine waves with different frequencies, amplitudes, and phases.

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

19

A composite periodic signal

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

20

Note

The bandwidth of a composite signal is the difference between the highest and the lowest frequencies contained in that signal.

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

21

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

22

Digital Signals
Information can also be represented by a digital signal. For example, a 1 can be encoded as a positive voltage and a 0 as zero voltage. A digital signal can have more than two levels. In this case, we can send more than 1 bit for each level.

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

23

Two digital signals: one with two signal levels and the other with four signal levels

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

24

Transmission Impairment
Signals travel through transmission media, which are not perfect. The imperfection causes signal impairment. This means that the signal at the beginning of the medium is not the same as the signal at the end of the medium. What is sent is not what is received. Three causes of impairment are attenuation, distortion, and noise.
EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks 25

Causes of Impairment

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

26

Attenuation

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

27

Distortion

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

28

Noise

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

29

Data Rate Limits

A very important consideration in data communications is how fast we can send data, in bits per second, over a channel. Data rate depends on three factors: The bandwidth available The level of the signals we use The quality of the channel (the level of noise)
EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks 30

Note

Increasing the levels of a signal may reduce the reliability of the system.

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

31

Example
Consider a noiseless channel with a bandwidth of 3000 Hz transmitting a signal with two signal levels. The maximum bit rate can be calculated as

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

32

Example
We need to send 265 kbps over a noiseless channel with a bandwidth of 20 kHz. How many signal levels do we need? Solution We can use the Nyquist formula as shown:

Since this result is not a power of 2, we need to either increase the number of levels or reduce the bit rate. If we have 128 levels, the bit rate is 280 kbps. If we have 64 levels, the bit rate is 240 kbps.
EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks 33

Shannon Capacity
Shannon capacity is to determine the theoretical highest data rate for noisy channel.
Capacity=bandwidth x log2 (1+SNR)

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

34

Example
We can calculate the theoretical highest bit rate of a regular telephone line. A telephone line normally has a bandwidth of 3000. The signal-to-noise ratio is usually 3162. For this channel the capacity is calculated as

This means that the highest bit rate for a telephone line is 34.860 kbps. If we want to send data faster than this, we can either increase the bandwidth of the line or improve the signal-to-noise ratio.
EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks 35

QUESTIONS

EEE 314: Data Communications & Computer Networks

36