ELEC1200: A System View of

Communications: from Signals to Packets

Lecture 1
• C
Course Overview
O i and
d Mechanics
M h i
• A basic communication system
– Bits and Bit Sequences
– The transmitter
– The channel
– Th
The receiver
i

ELEC1200 1
 Who’s who
Instructor
• Prof.
f W.H. MOW

Teaching Associate TAs

• Miu CHAN • JAISWAL Sunil Prasad
• KONG Yue
• YANG Haiyan
Technical
echnical Officer • YUAN Yuan
• Leo FOK • DONG Xujiong

ELEC1200 2
 Course Description
• Have you ever wondered what technologies enable
you to communicate via your mobile phone?

• Course Features
– Hands on: You work with a simple but fully functional
wireless communication system to understand the basic
technology in these systems.
– Broad perspective: We cover all aspects of the system
from end to end.
– Fundamental: All concepts
p introduced from first
principles. No prior ECE background required.

ELEC1200 3
Our Question: How to transmit information
wirelessly?

ELEC1200 4
Our Question: How to transmit information
wirelessly?

Point-to-point: link from phone to base station

first 2/3 of this course
Network: links between base stations
last 1/3 of this course
ELEC1200 5
 Our Laboratory Work
Infrared Light
Universal
Software Universal
Radio Software
Peripheral Radio
(USRP board) Peripheral
Infrared Light (USRP board)

Headset PC + MATLAB PC + MATLAB Headset

Most of your work will involve programming in MATLAB

ELEC1200 6
 Provides the context for:
• Foundation course:
– ELEC2100: Signals and Systems
• Area courses:
– ELEC3100: Signal Processing and Communication
– ELEC3200: System Modeling, Analysis and Control
• Depth Courses
– ELEC41XX
• Digital Communication,
Communication Computer Communication Networks
Networks,
Digital Image Processing, Speech and Image Compression,
Information Theory and Error-Correcting Codes, Digital
Speech Recognition, Digital Media and Multimedia
A li ti
Applications, Wi
Wireless
l C
Communication
i ti E Engineering
i i
– ELEC42XX
• Digital Control Systems
– ELEC48XX
• Medical Imaging
ELEC1200 7
 Prerequisites
• Math (one of the following)
– AL Pure Mathematics or AL Applied Mathematics
– MATH 1003/1014/1018/1020/1024

• Programming
g g
– COMP 1004/1021/1022P/1022Q

ELEC1200 8
 Course Objectives
• CO1 - Through
Th h the
th study
t d off a voice
i communication
i ti
system, students will understand the real-life context
of the concepts that they study in more theoretical
detail in other classes
• CO2 - Students will be able to explain typical problems
and tradeoffs encountered in electronic and computer
engineering systems
• CO3 - Students will be able to analyze simple
approaches to deal with these problems and tradeoffs.
• CO4 - Students will be able to use software tools, such
as MATLAB,
MATLAB to investigate potential solutions to these
problems/tradeoffs in order to validate the above
analysis, as well as handle cases not amenable to simple
analysis.
y
• CO5 - Students gain experience working and learning in
a cooperative setting on real hardware where the
simplifying assumptions used in theoretical analysis may
be violated,
violated and gain an understanding of the both the
benefits and limitations of such analysis.
ELEC1200 9
 POO11 – An ability to usee the computer/IT
too
ols relevant to the Elecctronic and
10
3

Coomputer Engineering along

a with an
unnderstanding of their processes and
lim
mitations.
POO10 – An ability to usee current
tecchniques, skills and en
ngineering tools
2
1

ecessary for solving Electronic and

ne
Coomputer Engineering problems.
p
Course vs Program Objectives

POO9 – An ability to recog gnize the need

1

forr, and to engage in life

e-long learning.
PO
O8 – An ability to unde
erstand
co
ontemporary global, reggional, economic,
nvironmental, and social issues, and the
en
co
orresponding role and the
t impact of
Ele
ectronic and Compute er engineers.

3 = Significant, 2 = Good, 1 = Basic

PO
O7 – An ability to comm
municate
3

2
efffectively.
POO6 – An ability to undeerstand
proofessional practices and ethical
ressponsibilities.
PO
O5 – An ability to identtify, formulate and
1

2
olve Electronic and Computer
so
En
ngineering problems.
POO4 – An ability to functtion in a multi-

3
dissciplinary environmentt through
teaamwork.
POO3 – An ability to desig
gn efficient and
ecconomical Electronic and Computer
1

2
Enngineering systems, co omponents or
proocess subject to practical constraints.
POO2 – An ability to desig
gn and conduct

3
exxperiments, as well as to analyse and
intterpret data.
PO
O1 – An ability to apply
y knowledge of

2
ma
athematics, science an nd Electronic and
Co
omputer Engineering.

CO2 - Students will be able to explain typical

hardware where the simplifying assumptions

used in theoretical analysis may be violated,
and learning in a cooperative setting on real
concepts that they study in more theoretical

CO4 -Students will be able to use software

and gain an understanding of the benefits

potential solutions to these problems and

CO5 - Students gain experience working

analysis, as well as to handle cases not
problems and tradeoffs encountered in

tradeoffs in order to validate the above

understand the practical context of the

CO3 -Students will be able to analyze

tools such as MATLAB to investigate

simple approaches to deal with these
electronic and computer engineering
communication system, students will
COURSE OUTCOMES

CO1 Through the study of a voice

and limitations of such analysis.

amenable to simple analysis.
problems and tradeoffs.

ELEC1200
detail in other classes.

systems.

tools,
CO1-
 A week in the life of ELEC1200
MON TUE WED THU FRI
LA1
10:00-12:50
10 00 12 50
LA3
Lecture A Tutorial Room 2133 Lecture B
13:30–16:20
16:00-16:50 18:00-18:50 11:30-12:20
Room 2134
Room 2302 Room 2302 LA2 Room 2302
16:30-19:20
6 30 9 0
Room 2134

•Lecture A:
-Cover concepts to be studied in the lab
•Tutorial:
-discussion and laboratory preparation
b
•Lab:
-3-hour section, work with partner
•Lecture B:
-Extend
Extend concepts from lab,
lab introduce next topic

ELEC1200 11
 Assessment
` Pre-lab exercises (10%)
` Handed in at the start of the lab.
` Lab Check-off Points (10%)
` Post-lab interviews (15% total)
` Each lab g
groupp (2 students) meets with teachingg staff to
discuss questions about the material in the lab.
` No lab reports are required
` Homework (10%)
` Reinforce concepts learned during the lab
` Midterm Exam (20%)
` Final Exam (35%)

ELEC1200 12
 ELEC1200: A System View of
Communications: from Signals to Packets
Lecture 1
• C
Course Overview
O i
• A basic communication system
– Bits and Bit Sequences
– The transmitter
– The channel
– Th
The receiver
i

ELEC1200 13
 Point-to-Point Communication:
fewer more
bits bits
sent sent
Error
bits Bits to waveform
Source Compress Correcting
Waveforms
Coding Noise
and

Channel
C
signals
i l
Lab 12 Lab 6 Labs 1-4 from
other
users
use s
Labs
Error Waveforms 5, 7-9
Dest Uncompress
received Correction to Bits received
bits waveform

Ideally, “sent bits” = “received bits”

However this is not always the case.
However, case Usually,
Usually we want to avoid this
this.

ELEC1200 14
 Our Starting Point
sent
Bits to waveform
Source
b0,b1,b2, b3, b4, … Waveforms

Cha
sent bits
Transmitter
a s e

annel
Waveforms
Dest
received
t Bit
to Bits received
bits waveform
Receiver

• The transmitter takes a sequence of bits and creates a

physical waveform (e.g. time varying voltage or light
intensity) that is carried over a channel.
• The channel (a wire, the air, a fiber optic cable) may modify
the signal as it carries it.
• The receiver tries to figure
g out what the transmitted bits
were from the received waveform.

ELEC1200 15
 Bits
• A bit is the basic unit of information used in
modern computers and communication systems.
• A bit is a variable that can assume only two
possible values or “states”, commonly denoted by 0
or 1.
• Variables that can assume more than two possible
values can be represented by combinations or
sequences of bits,
bits ee.g.
g
– binary numbers
– ASCII codes for letters and text

ELEC1200 16
 Binary Numbers
• We can use N bits bN-1,…, b1, b0 to represent
integers from 0 to 2N-1
• For example
example, if N = 3,
3 x b2 b1 b0
0 0 0 0
x = b2 ⋅ 2 + b1 ⋅ 2 + b0 ⋅ 2
2 1 0
1 0 0 1
2 0 1 0
• More generally, 3 0 1 1
N −1
4 1 0 0
x = ∑b
i= 0
i ⋅2 i
5 1 0 1
6 1 1 0
7 1 1 1
• Notation:
– bN-1 = Most Significant Bit (MSB)
– b0 = Least S
Significant
gn f cant Bit
B t (LSB)

ELEC1200 17
 ASCII Codes
• ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Exchange
• A 7-bit code that can represent 128 text symbols
Example:
p
E = 1000101

MSB LSB
b6 b0

• Often, a
zero is put at
the start to
create an 8
bit code,e.g.,
E = 01000101

MSB LSB
b7 b0
ELEC1200 18
 Bit Sequences
• Information we want to send is typically encoded
as long bit sequences created by concatenating
binary code words.
• In this class, we will assume that the LSB appears
first in the sequence.
• Thus, ECE would be transmitted as the bit
sequence

b0 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 b7
1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 …
E C
1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0
E
ELEC1200 19
 Representing Bits
• Physically, bits can be represented as two distinct
states of a physical variable, e.g.
– voltage (1 = high / 0 = low)
– current (1 = positive / 0 = negative)
– light (1 = on / 0 = off)

Receiver

T
Transmitter
mitt

ELEC1200 20
Representing Bit Sequences as Waveforms
• A bit sequence can be encoded by changing the value of the
physical variable over time.

b0=1
1 b1=0
0 b2=1
1 b3=0
0 b4=0
0 b5=0
0 b6=1
1 b7=0
0
light intensity

ON

bit time
OFF
time

• Each bit is encoded by holding the state constant over a

length of time,
time known as the bit time
time.
• The shorter the bit time, the faster we can transmit
information (bits)
ght intensity

ON

OFF
lig

bit time

ELEC1200 21
 The channel
• The transmitter sends the waveform representing
the bit sequence to the receiver over a channel.
• For example,
example
– A voltage or current waveform might be sent over a wire.
– A light waveform might be sent over a fiber optic link
(
(e.g. th
the internet)
i t t) or over plain
l i air
i (e.g.
( a TV remote)
t )
• Due to various factors, the channel may distort
the waveform,
f , so that the waveform
f at received
by the receiver is not the same as the one sent by
the transmitter.

transmitter channel receiver

ELEC1200 22
 Receiver
• The receiver’s job is to take the possibly distorted
signal it receives and figure out what the original
transmitted bit sequence was.
sent
waveform
Source Tx
b0, b1, b2, b3, b4, …

Channel
b0, b1, b2, b3, b4, …
Dest Rx
received
waveform

• Common Abbreviations
– Tx
x = transm
transmitter
tter
– Rx = receiver
ELEC1200 23
 Key Questions for Next Lecture
• How do we describe the physical waveforms sent
by the transmitter and sensed by the receiver
using mathematical equations?
• How do we describe (model) the effect of the
channel on the physical waveform?

ELEC1200 24