EC8491: Communication Theory Department of ECE

UNIT 4 –NOISE CHARACTERISATION

NOISE

Noise is random, undesirable electrical energy that enters the communications system
via the communicating medium and interferes with the transmitted message. However, some
noise is also produced in the receiver.

With reference to an electrical system, noise may be defined as any unwanted form of
energy which tends to interfere with proper reception and reproduction of wanted signal.
Noise may be put into following two categories.

External noises, i.e. noise whose sources are external. External noise may be classified
into the following three types:

Atmospheric noises

Extra-terrestrial noises

Man-made noises or industrial noises.

Internal noise in communication:

Noises which get, generated within the receiver or communication system.

Internal noise may be put into the following four categories.

 Thermal noise or white noise or Johnson noise

 Shot noise.
 Transit time noise
 Miscellaneous internal noise.

External noise cannot be reduced except by changing the location of the receiver or
the entire system. Internal noise on the other hand can be easily evaluated mathematically
and can be reduced to a great extent by proper design.

Explanation of External Noise

Atmospheric Noise: Atmospheric noise or static is caused by lighting discharges in

thunderstorms and other natural electrical disturbances occurring in the atmosphere. These
electrical impulses are random in nature. Hence the energy is spread over the complete
frequency spectrum used for radio communication. Atmospheric noise accordingly consists
of spurious radio signals with components spread over a wide frequency range. These
spurious radio waves constituting the noise get propagated over the earth in the same fashion
as the desired radio waves of the same frequency. Accordingly at a given receiving point, the
receiving antenna picks up not only the signal but also the static from all the thunderstorms,
local or remote.

Extra-terrestrial noise:
 Solar noise
 Cosmic noise

Solar noise:
This is the electrical noise emanating from the sun. Under quite conditions, there is a
2020 - 2021 Jeppiaar Institute of Technology
EC8491: Communication Theory Department of ECE
steady radiation of noise from the sun. This results because sun is a large body at a very high
temperature (exceeding 6000°c on the surface), and radiates electrical energy in the form of
noise over a very wide frequency spectrum including the spectrum used for radio
communication. The intensity produced by the sun varies with time. In fact, the sun has a
repeating 11-year noise cycle. During the peak of the cycle, the sun produces some amount of
noise that causes tremendous radio signal interference, making many frequencies unusable
for communications. During other years. The noise is at a minimum level.
Cosmic noise:

Distant stars are also suns and have high temperatures. These stars, therefore, radiate
noise in the same way as our sun. The noise received from these distant stars is thermal noise
(or black body noise) and is distributing almost uniformly over the entire sky. Noise is
received from the centre of our own galaxy (The Milky Way) from other distant galaxies and
from other virtual point sources such as quasars and pulsars.

Man-Made Noise (Industrial Noise):

By man-made noise or industrial- noise is meant the electrical noise produced by such
sources as automobiles and aircraft ignition, electrical motors and switch gears, leakage from
high voltage lines, fluorescent lights, and numerous other heavy electrical machines. Such
noises are produced by the arc discharge taking place during operation of these machines.
Such man-made noise is most intensive in industrial and densely populated areas. Man-made
noise in such areas far exceeds all other sources of noise in the frequency range extending
from about 1 MHz to 600 MHz

Explanation of Internal Noise in communication:

Thermal Noise: Conductors contain a large number of 'free" electrons and "ions"
strongly bound by molecular forces. The ions vibrate randomly about their normal (average)
positions, however, this vibration being a function of the temperature. Continuous collisions
between the electrons and the vibrating ions take place. Thus there is a continuous transfer of
energy between the ions and electrons. This is the source of resistance in a conductor. The
movement of free electrons constitutes a current which is purely random in nature and over a
long time averages zero.
There is a random motion of the electrons which give rise to noise voltage called
thermal noise. Thus noise generated in any resistance due to random motion of electrons is
called thermal noise or white or Johnson noise. The analysis of thermal noise is based on the
Kinetic theory. It shows that the temperature of particles is a way of expressing its internal
kinetic energy. Thus "Temperature" of a body can be said to be equivalent to the statistical
rms value of the velocity of motion of the particles in the body. At -273°C (or zero degree
Kelvin) the kinetic energy of the particles of a body becomes zero .Thus we can relate the
noise power generated by a resistor to be proportional to its absolute temperature. Noise
power is also proportional to the bandwidth over which it is measured. From the above
discussion we can write down.

2020 - 2021 Jeppiaar Institute of Technology

EC8491: Communication Theory Department of ECE

Transit Time Noise:

Another kind of noise that occurs in transistors is called transit time noise. Transit
time is the duration of time that it takes for a current carrier such as a hole or current to move
from the input to the output. The devices themselves are very tiny, so the distances involved
are minimal. Yet the time it takes for the current carriers to move even a short distance is
finite. At low frequencies this time is negligible. But when the frequency of operation is high
and the signal being processed is the magnitude as the transit time, then problem can occur.
The transit time shows up as a kind of random noise within the device, and this is directly
proportional to the frequency of operation.

Miscellaneous Internal Noises Flicker Noise:

Flicker noise or modulation noise is the one appearing in transistors operating at low
audio frequencies. Flicker noise is proportional to the emitter current and junction
temperature. However, this noise is inversely proportional to the frequency. Hence it may be
neglected at frequencies above about 500 Hz and it, Therefore, possess no serious problem.

2020 - 2021 Jeppiaar Institute of Technology

 EC8491: Communication Theory Department of ECE

Transistor Thermal Noise:

Within the transistor, thermal noise is caused by the emitter, base and collector
internal resistances. Out of these three regions, the base region contributes maximum thermal
noise.
Partition Noise:
Partition noise occurs whenever current has to divide between two or more paths, and
results from the random fluctuations in the division. It would be expected, therefore, that a
diode would be less noisy than a transistor (all other factors being equal) If the third electrode
draws current (i.e.., the base current). It is for this reason that the inputs of microwave
receivers are often taken directly to diode mixers.
Shot Noise:
The most common type of noise is referred to as shot noise which is produced by the
random arrival of 'electrons or holes at the output element, at the plate in a tube, or at the
collector or drain in a transistor. Shot noise is also produced by the random movement of
electrons or holes across a PN junction. Even through current flow is established by external
bias voltages, there will still be some random movement of electrons or holes due to
discontinuities in the device. An example of such a discontinuity is the contact between the
copper lead and the semiconductor materials. The interface between the two creates a
discontinuity that causes random movement of the current carriers.

2. Capture effect, threshold effect Pre-emphasis and de-emphasis

Capture effect:
In the frequency modulation, the signal can be affected by another frequency
modulated signal whose frequency content is close to the carrier frequency of the desired FM
wave. The receiver may lock such an interference signal and suppress the desired FM wave
when interference signal is stronger than the desired signal. When the strength of the desired
signal and interference signal are nearly equal, the receiver fluctuates back and forth between
them, i.e., receiver locks interference signal for some times and desired signal for some time
and this goes on randomly. This phenomenon is known as the capture effect.

FM Threshold Effect:
The output signal to noise ratio of FM receiver is valid only if the carrier to noise
ratio is measured at the discriminator input is high compared to unity. It is observed that as
the input noise is increased so that the carrier to noise ratio decreased, the FM receiver
breaks. At first individual clicks are heard in the receiver output and as the carrier to noise
ratio decreases still further, the clicks rapidly merge in to a crackling or sputtering sound.

FM threshold reduction:
This can be achieved by using an FM demodulator with negative feedback (FMFB) or
by using a phase locked loop demodulator.

Fig.1 FM Threshold reduction

2020 - 2021 Jeppiaar Institute of Technology

EC8491: Communication Theory Department of ECE

The conventional local oscillator is replaced by VCO. To understand the operation of

this receiver, suppose that VCO is removed from the circuit and the feedback path is left
open.

Assume that the wide band FM is applied to the receiver input, and a second FM from
the same source but with a modulation index a fraction smaller is applied to the VCO
terminal of the product modulator. The output of the product modulator consists of sum and
difference frequency components. The IF filter is designed to pass only difference frequency
component. The frequency deviation of the IF filter output would be small, although the
frequency deviation of both input FM wave is large, since the difference between their
instantaneous deviations is small.
Hence, the modulation indices would subtract, and the resulting FM wave at the IF filter
output have a smaller modulation index than the input FM waves. This means that the IF
filters bandwidth in fig above need only be a fraction of that required for either wideband FM
wave. It is now apparent that Second wide band FM waves replaced by VCO feed by o/p of
low pass filter.

Pre-Emphasis and De-Emphasis in an FM system

Fig. 2 Pre-emphasis and De-emphasis in FM

In this method, we artificially emphasize the high frequency components of the

message signal prior modulation in the transmitter before the noise is introduced in the
receiver. The low frequency and high frequency portions of the PSD of the message are
equalized in such a way that the message fully occupies the frequency band allotted to it.
Then, at the discriminator output in the receiver perform the inverse operation by de-
emphasizing the high frequency components to restore the message. In this process, the high
frequency noise is reduced thereby effectively increasing the output SNR of the system.

2020 - 2021 Jeppiaar Institute of Technology

EC8491: Communication Theory Department of ECE

2020 - 2021 Jeppiaar Institute of Technology

7