Experiment 8: Line Coding

Aim: This experiment is intended to make the students generate line codes corresponding to
random bit sequences and examine their time- and frequency-domain properties.

Basic Theory

Logic-0 and logic-1 in digital systems are represented by assigned voltages. For example, the
TTL logic-0 is represented by 0V and the TTL logic-1 is represented by 5V (or by acceptable
voltages relatively close to 0V and 5V). The voltage levels for other logic families such as
CMOS and ECL are not necessarily 0V and 5V. This tells us that logic levels can be represented
by any pair of voltages we like. That said, the choice of which voltages to use is not as arbitrary
as that may seem. It is usually an engineering decision made to confer an advantage.

Importantly, this is also true for the choice of voltages used when sending digital signals over
transmission lines like telephone lines. Standard TTL and CMOS voltages are less than ideal for
this purpose. Moreover, even the basic premise of holding the voltage at a particular value for the
entire duration of the logic state’s value can be disadvantageous. For these reasons, digital
signals within systems are often conditioned for transmission line communications and this is
called line coding.

There are quite a few line codes. We will generate and study the following:

Non-return to zero – level (bipolar) (NRZ-L): As you can see from Figure 1 on the next page,
this code is a simple scale and level shift of the original digital signal.

Bi-phase – level (BiΦ-L also known as Manchester code): Figure 1 shows that this code
changes state from +V to –V in the middle of the bit period for all logic-1s and changes from
–V to +V in the middle of the bit period for all logic-0s. For consecutive bits with the same
logic level, the voltage must invert after half a bit length in order to satisfy this rule for the
next bit.

Return to zero – alternate mark inversion (RZ-AMI): Figure 1 shows that this code uses
0V to represent logic-0 and a half-bit pulse to represent logic-1. Importantly, the polarity of
the pulses alternates for every successive logic-1 (even if they’re not consecutive bits).
 Non-return to zero – mark (bipolar) (NRZ-M): Figure 1 shows that this code changes state for
each new logic-1 and doesn’t change state for any logic-0s.

0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0
5V

TTL

0V

NRZ-L 0V

Bi𝛷-L 0V

RZ-AMI 0V

NRZ-M 0V

Figure 1

Table 1 compares the minimum bandwidth requirements for propagating these signals along
transmission lines. It also shows the line code’s usefulness for bit-clock regeneration. As you can
see from the table, RZ-AMI offers the best compromise among the above between bandwidth
and bit-clock regeneration (as well as other line code characteristics not mentioned here) and so
it is widely used.
 Table 1

Line code Minimum Bit-clock

NRZ-L Rb Poor

BiΦ-L 2R b Very good

RZ-AMI Rb Good

NRZ-M Rb Poor

A – Observations on the random bit pattern in both Time and Frequency

1. Generate a data string of 10 random bits. To generate random integer string of length 𝑁
within the range 𝐼𝑚𝑖𝑛 and 𝐼𝑚𝑎𝑥 , use the MATLAB command
randi([𝑰𝒎𝒊𝒏 , 𝑰𝒎𝒂𝒙 ],1,N)
2. To represent this bit string as a transmittable signal, let the bit rate (𝑅𝑏 ) be 10 bits per
second. What is the bit period?
3. Represent this data using NRZ-L, Bi𝛷-L, RZ-AMI and NRZ-M line codes. Assume V =
1 Volt for each of these. Plot the line codes corresponding to the generated random data
one below the other in a single figure.
4. For each of the line codes, plot the spectrum one below the other in a single figure. From
this, for each line code, note down the frequency at which the first deep null occurs. If we
call this the essential bandwidth of the line code, what is the bandwidth for each line
code? Is this related to the bit rate? What is the ratio of the bandwidth to the bit rate for
each line code? Find the power at 0 Hz and at the first deep null. Tabulate the results
separately for each line coding using the table format given in Table 2.

Table 2: Time & Spectral Domain Properties of line codes

Digital Line Bit Power First Deep Power Essential

0
B – Effect of Bandwidth Limiting of channels

The bandwidth limiting in a channel can distort digital signals and upset the operation of the
receiver. This part of the experiment demonstrates this using line coded digital data passing
through a channel, represented by a low pass filter.

Pass each of the line codes through an LPF. For each line code, vary the cut-off frequency across
a sufficiently large range of frequencies. You can use the cut-off frequencies in multiple of the
bit rate. Plot the filtered output below the corresponding line coded signal. Describe your
observations. For performing the filtering operation, use the “butter” command to obtain the
filter coefficients of a Butterworth filter (of order 5 or above) and use these coefficients in the
“filter” command. Do not use the “lowpass” command for this experiment.

C – Detection of line coded signals corrupted by bandlimited channels

Next, we decode the line-coded signal that is transmitted via a bandlimited channel. The
detection mechanism varies from one line code to another. For NRZ-L and NRZ-M, we detect
the bit by first sampling it at the middle of the bit period (that is, at time instant 𝑛 𝑇𝑏 for the 𝑛𝑡ℎ
𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑥 +𝑉𝑚𝑖𝑛
bit) and checking if the received signal at this time instant is greater than Volts or
2
lesser. Here, 𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑥 and 𝑉𝑚𝑖𝑛 are the voltage levels assigned to logic-1 and logic-0 respectively. In
contrast, due to split-phase coding used in Bi𝛷-L and RZ-AMI, the signal needs to be sampled
𝑛 𝑇𝑏 3 𝑛 𝑇𝑏
twice in a bit period. Specifically, for the 𝑛𝑡ℎ bit, it needs to be sampled at and . As
4 4
𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑥 +𝑉𝑚𝑖𝑛
before, each of these samples are compared with before a detection decision is
2
appropriately taken.

For each of the line code, detect the line-coded signal and note down the error rate, which is the
ratio of wrongly decoded bits to the total number of transmitted bits. Compute the error rate for
various cut-off frequencies of the LPF. Note down your observations.

D – Conclusions:

List out your learnings from the experiments.