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EE4601 Communication Systems: Channel Capacity

This document discusses channel capacity and the Shannon capacity theorem. It defines channel capacity as the maximum rate information can be transmitted over a channel with arbitrary reliability. For an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, the capacity is equal to the bandwidth multiplied by the logarithm of the signal-to-noise ratio. An example calculates the capacity of an AWGN channel with 6MHz bandwidth and 20dB SNR as 40Mbps. The document also discusses the power efficient and bandwidth efficient regions of channel capacity.

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Fatima Ahsan
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71 views

EE4601 Communication Systems: Channel Capacity

This document discusses channel capacity and the Shannon capacity theorem. It defines channel capacity as the maximum rate information can be transmitted over a channel with arbitrary reliability. For an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, the capacity is equal to the bandwidth multiplied by the logarithm of the signal-to-noise ratio. An example calculates the capacity of an AWGN channel with 6MHz bandwidth and 20dB SNR as 40Mbps. The document also discusses the power efficient and bandwidth efficient regions of channel capacity.

Uploaded by

Fatima Ahsan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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EE4601
Communication Systems
Lecture 2
Channel Capacity

&

c
2007,
Georgia Institute of Technology (lect2 0)

'

Shannon Capacity of a Channel


Claude Shannon (1949) proved that every physical channel has a capacity, C,
dened as the maximum possible rate that information can be transmitted with
arbitrary reliability over the channel.
Arbitrary reliability means that the bit error probability (BER) can be made
as small as desired.
Arbitrary reliability is achieved in practice by using forward error correction
(FEC) coding techniques.
Conversely, information cannot be transmitted reliably over a channel at any
rate greater than the channel capacity, C. The BER probability will be equal to
1/2 (useless channel).
The channel capacity depends on the channel transfer function and the received
bit energy-to-noise ratio (operating SNR).
&

c
2005,
Georgia Institute of Technology (lect2 1)

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Coding Channel and Capacity


The channel capacity depends only on the coding channel, dened as the portion
of the communication system that is seen by the coding system.
The input to the coding channel is the output of the encoder.
The output of the coding channel is the input to the decoder.
The coding channel inputs are symbols chosen from a digital modulation alphabet, while the coding channel output are the matched filter outputs in the receiver.

Encoder
Coding
Channel
Decoder
&

c
2005,
Georgia Institute of Technology (lect2 2)

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AWGN Channel
s(t)

Sn(f)
No /2

r(t) = s(t) + n(t)

-W

n(t)

For the AWGN channel (with continuous time input/output), the capacity is


C = W log2

P
1+
No W

W = channel bandwidth (Hz)


P = constrained input signal power (watts)
No = one-sided noise power spectral density (watts/Hz)

&

c
2005,
Georgia Institute of Technology (lect2 3)

'

Capacity of the AWGN Channel


Dividing both sides by W


P
C
= log2 1 +
W
No W
R
Eb
Eb /No
R/W

=
=
=
=

= log2

Eb R
1+

No W

1/T = data rate (bits/second)


energy per data bit (Joules) = P T
received bit energy-to-noise spectral density ratio (dimensionless)
bandwidth eciency (bits/s/Hz)

If R = C, i.e., we transmit at a rate equal to the channel capacity, then




Eb C
C
= log2 1 +

W
No W

or inverting this equation we get Eb /No in terms of C, viz.

&

2C/W 1
Eb
=
No
C/W

c
2005,
Georgia Institute of Technology (lect2 4)

'

AWGN Channel Capacity

&

c
2005,
Georgia Institute of Technology (lect2 5)

'

Capacity of the AWGN Channel


Example: Suppose that W = 6 MHz (TV channel bandwidth) and SNR =
P/(No W ) = 20 dB. What is the channel capacity?
Answer: C = 6 106 log2 (1 + 100) = 40 Mbps.
Asymptotic behavior: as C/W 0.
Using LHopitals rule
limC/W 0

Eb
=
No
=
=
=

limC/W 0 2C/W ln 2
ln 2
0.693
1.6dB

Conclusion: It is impossible to communicate on an AWGN channel with arbitrary


reliability if Eb /No < 1.6 dB, regardless of how small we make the bandwidth
eciency (or date rate).
&

c
2005,
Georgia Institute of Technology (lect2 6)

'

AWGN Channel Capacity


Power Ecient Region: R/W < 1 bits/s/Hz. In this region we have plenty
of bandwidth, but transmit power is limited, e.g., deep space communications.
Bandwidth Ecient Region: R/W > 1 bits/s/Hz. In this region we have
plenty of power, but bandwidth is limited, e.g., commercial wireless communications.
Observe that most uncoded modulation schemes operate about 10 dB from the
Shannon capacity limit for an error rate of 105 .
State-of-the-art turbo coding schemes can close this gap to less than 1 dB,
with the cost of additional receiver processing complexity and delay.
Generally, we can tradeo power, bandwidth, processing complexity, delay.

&

c
2005,
Georgia Institute of Technology (lect2 7)

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