Signals

• Data are converted into signals before being transmitted on telecommunication

links or channels.

• In telecommunications a signal is usually represented by a voltage, current or

electromagnetic wave (has electric and magnetic field components) as a function
of time.

• A continues-time signal has a value at each moment of time. Figure below

shows a continues-time voltage signal.

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• A discrete-time signal has values at discrete moments of time. The values of
the signal between these discrete moments are not conveyed or represented.

• A discrete-time signal might be obtained by sampling a continues-time signal as

shown in figure below.

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• Signals can be classified as either analog or digital.

• An analog signal is usually a continues-time signal. At each moment of time,

an analog signal might have any of an infinite number of values within any range
of the signal level.

• On the other hand, a digital signal is a discrete-time signal. The value of each
sample of the digital signal has a limited number of possible values.

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• The samples of a digital signal are usually represented or encoded as binary
numbers producing a signal of binary digits as shown in figure below.

• An example of this process is the pulse code modulation (PCM) of an audio

signal. A typical telephone channel is sampled at a rate of 8000 sample per
second. Then each sample is PCM encoded using 8 bits.

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 Digital Signals
• Information can be represented by a digital signal. For example, a logic 1 can be
encoded as a positive voltage and a logic 0 as a zero voltage.

• A digital signal can have more than two voltage levels. In this case, more than 1
bit can be sent for each level of the digital signal. The number of distinct levels
“L” needed to encode “m” bits of data is such that:

L ≥ 2m

Solving the above equation for the number of bits “m” that can be encoded
using “L” distinct levels yields:

log L ln L
m≤ or m≤
log 2 ln 2

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Figure below shows two digital signals: one with two signal levels and the other
one with four signal levels.

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• The bandwidth of a digital signal is infinite. Therefore, baseband transmission of
a digital signal that preserves the shape of the digital signal is possible only if a
low-pass transmission channel with an infinite or very wide bandwidth is used.

Figure: Baseband transmission using a dedicated medium

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 Modulation of Digital Signals
• If the available transmission channel is a bandpass channel, the baseband
digital signal cannot be directly sent through to the channel. Instead, conversion
of the digital signal to an analog signal is required before transmission.

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 Transmission Impairments of Signals

• Signals travel through imperfect transmission media. This cause including

attenuation, distortion and noise to the received signal.

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 Transmission of Analog and Digital Data
• There are different modulation and encoding schemes to convey and transmit
analog and digital data. Figure below explains the different conversion methods
available to convey analog and digital data.

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 Digital-to-Digital Conversion
• Digital data can be represented by digital signals.
• Digital-to-digital conversion can be achieved by a process called line coding.
• In line coding, digital data are encoded at the sender to produce a digital signal.
At the receiver the digital data are recovered by decoding the received digital
signal.

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 Line Coding Schemes
• Line coding can be divided into the following five categories:

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 Unipolar (NRZ) Encoding
• In uniploar encoding the digital signal has either positive or negative voltage
levels.
• A unipolar non-return-to-zero (NRZ) digital signal has a positive voltage level for
each 1 digit and a zero voltage level for each 0 digit of the data stream.

• The NRZ digital signal requires the transmission of the dc component it

contains, which is a drawback in case of using a bandpass channel to transmit
the digital signal.
• Bit synchronization is also another major problem for NRZ digital signals.
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 Polar Encoding
• In polar encoding the digital signal has both positive and negative voltage
levels.

• Figure below lists different available polar encoding methods.

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 Polar NRZ Encoding
• In polar NRZ-L (NRZ-Level) encoding the level of the signal depends on the
state of the encoded bit. For example, any 0 is represented by a certain
negative voltage level and any 1 is represented by a certain positive voltage
level.

• In polar NRZ-I (NRZ-Invert) encoding the signal voltage level is inverted (from a
certain negative voltage level to a certain positive voltage level, or vice versa)
if a 1 is encountered.

• A temporary dc (or low frequency) component appears in an NRZ-L digital

signal when a long series of either 1s or 0s are encountered.

• A temporary dc (or low frequency) component appears in an NRZ-I digital signal

when only a long series of 0s are encountered.

• Bit synchronization is still a problem in polar NRZ signals.

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Figure below shows polar NRZ-L and NRZ-I digital signals.

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 Polar RZ Encoding
• Polar RZ uses three signal levels: positive, zero and negative. A 1 is
represented by a positive pulse that occupies half (or part of) the time
allocated for transmitting a 1 bit. A 0 is represented by a negative pulse that
occupies half (or part of) the time allocated for transmitting a 0 bit.

• The RZ signal includes the clock signal of the transmitted stream, thus solving
the synchronization problem. However, reducing the pulse-time to half (or any
other portion) means doubling (or increasing) the required transmission
bandwidth.

• A long series of 1s or 0s creates a dc or low frequency component in the RZ

digital signal.
Figure: RZ digital signal.

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 Polar Biphase Encoding
(Manchester and Differential Manchester Encoding)

• In Manchester encoding any 1 is represented by a signal that remains at one

voltage level (e.g. negative) for half the bit period, and then moves to the
opposite voltage (e.g. positive) for the second half of the bit period. Any 0 is
represented by a similar signal with inverted voltage polarities (e.g. a
positive-to-negative transition at the mid of the 0 bit).

• In differential Manchester there is always a transition at the middle of each bit.

However, a transition at the beginning of a bit happens only when one type of a
bit is transmitted (e.g. a 0 not a 1).

• In both Manchester and differential Manchester encoding schemes, there is no

dc or any low frequency component. The clock signal is also included, so
no synchronization problem exist.

• The only drawback of Manchester and differential Manchester encoding

schemes is that each requires double the transmission bandwidth needed for
transmitting an NRZ signal.
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Figure: Polar biphase encoding (Manchester and differential Manchester
digital signals).

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 Bipolar Encoding
• In bipolar encoding the digital signal has three voltage levels: positive, zero
and negative.

• There are two variations of bipolar encoding:

AMI (Alternate Mark Inversion)

Pseudoternary

• The AMI and pseudoternary signals have no dc or low frequency

components problem.

• The minimum bandwidth required for transmitting an AMI or pseudoternary

signal is the same as that for an NRZ signal.

• For its narrow bandwidth and no dc component characteristic, AMI is commonly

used for long-distance transmission. However, synchronization is a problem
when a long series of 0s occurs in the data.
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Figure: Bipolar encoding (AMI and pseudoternary digital signals).

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 Scrambling
• AMI encoding is preferred for long distance transmission because it requires
narrow bandwidth and no dc component. The problem of synchronization is
solved through scrambling by creating violations in the bipolar rule.

B8ZS (Bipolar With 8-Zero Substitution)

• B8ZS is commonly used in North America.

• Each 8 consecutive zeros are replaced by a “000VB0VB” sequence, where:

V: non-zero level voltage in violation with the AMI rule

B: non-zero level voltage in accordance with the AMI rule

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Figure: Two cases of B8ZS scrambling technique of AMI signals.

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 HDB3 (High-Density Bipolar 3-Zero)

• HDB3 is commonly used in outside North America.

• Each 4 consecutive zeros are replaced by either a “000V” or “B00V”

sequence , where:

V: non-zero level voltage in violation with the AMI rule

B: non-zero level voltage in accordance with the AMI rule

• The following rules are used to maintain an even number of non-zero pulses:

“000V” is substituted if the number of non-zero pulsed were odd since

the last substitution of the HDB3 code.

“B00V” is substituted if the number of non-zero pulsed were even since

the last substitution of the HDB3 code.

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Figure: Different situations in HDB3 code substitution.

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 Multi-transition Encoding

• Multi-line transmission is a differential encoding scheme that uses more than 2

signalling levels.

• MLT3 is a multi-line transmission that uses three signalling levels (positive,

zero and negative polarities).

• The shape of the signal in this scheme reduces the bandwidth needed to
transmit data at the same speed or it allows the transmission of data at a higher
speed for the same bandwidth as compared to an NRZ-I signal.

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• Figure:
Multitransition
MLT-3 encoding
scheme.

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 Transmission Modes of Digital Data

• The transmission of binary data across a link can be accomplished in either

parallel or serial mode. In parallel mode, multiple bits are sent with each clock
tick. In serial mode, 1 bit is sent with each clock tick.

• there are three subclasses of serial transmission:

Asynchronous

Synchronous

Isochronous

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Figure: Data transmission modes.

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Figure: Parallel transmission of data.

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Figure: Serial transmission of data.

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• Parallel transmission suffer from the interference between the parallel wires
carrying the bits due to the many wires used (cost and complexity).

• In asynchronous transmission of data, 1 start bit and 1, 1.5 or 2 stop bits are
sent with each byte of data. Thus, the receiver doesn’t need to be synchronized
at the byte level with the sender.

• In synchronous transmission no start nor stop bits are added to the sent bytes.
The sent bytes are attached to each other. Thus, the receiver needs to be
synchronized with the sender at both the bit and byte rates.

• synchronous transmission achieves higher data rates transfer as compared to

asynchronous transmission of data.

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Figure: Asynchronous transmission of data.

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Figure: Synchronous transmission of data.

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