Chapter 4

Digital Transmission

4.1 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
 4-1 DIGITAL-TO-DIGITAL CONVERSION

Figure 4.1 Line coding and decoding

Converting a string of 1’s and 0’s (digital data) into a sequence of

signals that denote the 1’s and 0’s.

4.2
 Characteristics of Line Coding Schemes

1. Data Element
A data element is defined as the smallest entity that
can represent a piece of information.
Examples of data elements are 0, 1 etc

2. Signal Element
The shortest unit of digital signal in terms of time is
called a Signal Element.
Examples of Signal Element is +5V for 1 sec, 0V for
1 sec.
4.3
 Figure 4.2 Signal element versus data element

4.4
 Characteristics of Line Coding Schemes

3. Data rate
The data rate defines the number of bits sent per sec -
bps. It is often referred to the bit rate.
4. Signal rate
The signal rate is the number of signal elements sent in
a second and is measured in bauds. It is also referred to
as the modulation rate.
Goal is to increase the data rate whilst reducing the baud
rate.
4.5
 Characteristics of Line Coding Schemes

The baud or signal rate can be expressed as:

S = N x 1/r bauds
Save = c x N x 1/r bauds

where N is data rate

c is the case factor (worst, best & avg.)
r is the ratio of data element to the signal element

4.6
 Example 4.1

A signal is carrying data in which one data element is

encoded as one signal element ( r = 1). If the bit rate is
100 kbps, what is the average value of the baud rate if c is
between 0 and 1?

Solution
We assume that the average value of c is 1/2 . The baud
rate is then

4.7
 Note

Although the actual bandwidth of a

digital signal is infinite, the effective
bandwidth is finite.

4.8
 Example 4.2

The maximum data rate of a channel (see Chapter 3) is

Nmax = 2 × B × log2 L (defined by the Nyquist formula).
Does this agree with the previous formula for Nmax?

Solution
A signal with L levels actually can carry log2L bits per
level. If each level corresponds to one signal element and
we assume the average case (c = 1/2), then we have

4.9
 Characteristics of Line Coding Schemes

6. Baseline wandering
A receiver will evaluate the average power of the
received signal (called the baseline) and use that to
determine the value of the incoming data elements. If
the incoming signal does not vary over a long period
of time, the baseline will drift and thus cause errors in
detection of incoming data elements.

A good line encoding scheme will prevent long runs

of fixed amplitude.

4.10
 Characteristics of Line Coding Schemes

7. DC components
When the voltage level remains constant for long
periods of time, there is an increase in the low
frequencies of the signal. Most channels are bandpass
and may not support the low frequencies.

This will require the removal of the dc component of a

transmitted signal.

4.11
 Characteristics of Line Coding Schemes

8. Self synchronization

The clocks at the sender and the receiver must have

the same bit interval.

If the receiver clock is faster or slower it will

misinterpret the incoming bit stream.

4.12
 Figure 4.3 Effect of lack of synchronization

4.13
 Example 4.3

In a digital transmission, the receiver clock is 0.1 percent

faster than the sender clock. How many extra bits per
second does the receiver receive if the data rate is
1 kbps? How many if the data rate is 1 Mbps?
Solution
At 1 kbps, the receiver receives 1001 bps instead of 1000
bps.

At 1 Mbps, the receiver receives 1,001,000 bps instead of

1,000,000 bps.

4.14
 Characteristics of Line Coding Schemes

9. Error detection

Errors occur during transmission due to line impairments.

Some codes are constructed such that when an error
occurs it can be detected. For example: a particular signal
transition is not part of the code. When it occurs, the
receiver will know that a symbol error has occurred.

4.15
 Characteristics of Line Coding Schemes

10. Noise and interference:

There are line encoding techniques that make the
transmitted signal “immune” to noise and
interference. It is stronger than error detection.

11. Complexity:

The more robust and resilient the code, the more

complex it is to implement and the price is often paid
in baud rate or required bandwidth.
4.16
 Figure 4.4 Line coding schemes

4.17
 Unipolar
 All signal levels are on one side of the time axis -
either above or below
 NRZ - Non Return to Zero scheme is an example of
this code. The signal level does not return to zero
during a symbol transmission.
 Scheme is prone to baseline wandering and DC
components. It has no synchronization or any error
detection. It is simple but costly in power
consumption.
Figure 4.5 Unipolar NRZ scheme

4.18
 Polar - NRZ
 The voltages are on both sides of the time axis.
 Polar NRZ scheme can be implemented with two voltages.
E.g. +V for 1 and -V for 0.
 There are two versions:
 NZR - Level (NRZ-L) - positive voltage for one symbol
and negative for the other
 NRZ - Inversion (NRZ-I) - the change or lack of change
in polarity determines the value of a symbol. E.g. a “1”
symbol inverts the polarity a “0” does not.

4.19
 Note

NRZ-L and NRZ-I both have a DC

component problem and baseline
wandering, it is worse for NRZ-L. Both
have no self synchronization &no error
detection. Both are relatively simple to
4.20
implement.
 Polar - RZ
 The Return to Zero (RZ) scheme uses three
voltage values. +, 0, -.
 Each symbol has a transition in the middle. Either
from high to zero or from low to zero.

4.21
 Figure 4.7 Polar RZ scheme

 This scheme has more signal transitions (two per symbol) and therefore
requires a wider bandwidth.
 Self synchronization - transition indicates symbol value.
 More complex as it uses three voltage level. It has no error detection
capability.

4.22