ECE4313 Digital Communications

Dr. Rajaveerappa Devadoss

ASTU 2019
Lecture-1 Introduction
 Introduction - Course Objectives

• The aim of this course is to provide a comprehensive coverage

and in-depth treatment of the theory and design of digital
communications at a level required for under graduate
students.

• Involves the use of advanced concepts. But

- Emphasis is placed on system goals and the need to trade off basic
system parameters such as signal-to-noise ratio, probability of error, and
bandwidth (spectral) expenditure.

13
 Necessary Background
• It is assumed that students taking this course are
familiar with the following topics:
- Signal and Linear System Analysis
- Noise and Stochastic Processes
Random Variables
Random Processes
Correlation Functions and Power Spectra
- Binary modulation
- Basic knowledge about estimation/detection
- Linear algebra and matrix operation
- Experience with MATLAB

20
 Communication

• Main purpose of communication is to transfer information from a

source to a recipient via a channel or medium.

• Basic block diagram of a communication system:

Source Transmitter Channel Receiver

Recipient
 Transmission Systems

• Analog Communications
- Continuous modulation
- Fidelity is usually defined in terms of
SNR.

• Digital Communications
- Signals made up of discrete symbols
selected from a finite set (e.g., binary
data).
- Fidelity or Accuracy is specified in terms 00011011110
of bit error rate (Probability of making a
bit error).

23
 Brief Description
• Source: analog or digital
• Transmitter: transducer, amplifier, modulator, oscillator, power amp.,
antenna
• Channel: e.g. cable, optical fibre, free space
• Receiver: antenna, amplifier, demodulator, oscillator, power amplifier,
transducer
• Recipient: e.g. person, (loud) speaker, computer
• Types of information
Voice, data, video, music, email etc.

• Types of communication systems

Public Switched Telephone Network (voice,fax,modem)
Satellite systems
Radio,TV broadcasting
Cellular phones
Computer networks (LANs, WANs, WLANs)
Simplified block diagram of a digital communication system

Binary interface

Information Source Channel

Modulator
Source Encoder Encoder

Noise Channel

Received Source Channel

Demodulator
Information Decoder Decoder

26
 Digital Communication Systems
-- Source Encoder
• Sampling
- makes signal discrete in time
- signals can be sampled without introducing distortion
• Quantization
- makes signal discrete in amplitude
- Good quantizers are able to use few bits and introduce small
distortion
• Source Coding
- compression of digital data to eliminate redundant
information (squeeze out redundant information)
- does not introduce distortion
29
 Digital Communication Systems
-- Channel Encoder
• Encryption
- ensures data privacy
• Channel coding
- Provides protection against transmission errors by selectively
inserting redundant data
- plays an extremely important role in system design
• Modulation
- Converts digital data to a continuous waveform suitable for
transmission (usually a sinusoidal wave)
- Information is transmitted by varying one or more parameters of
the transmitted signal
• Varying Phase such as in Phase Shift Keying (PSK)
• Varying Frequency such as in Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)
• Varying Amplitude such as in Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)
30
 Communication Channels
• Wireline channels
- Telephone network
- Twisted-pair wire lines and coaxial cable
• Fiber-optic channels
- Higher bandwidth, > GHz
• Underwater acoustic channels
- With increasing interest, but very challenging to design
• Storage channels
- Magnetic tape, magnetic disks, optical disks, compact disks
• Wireless channels

34
 Communication Channel

 Additive Noise Channel

 Linear Filter Channel

 Linear Time Variant Filter Channel

 Communication Channels
• Channel carries the transmitted signals
- could be a telephone wire, free space and often presents distorted signal to
demodulator
• Effects include
- Attenuation - Transmitted power typically decreases as inverse of square distance
- Noise (e.g., additive white Gaussian noise or AWGN.)
- Filtering
• Channel can have a bandwidth that is small compared to the signal bandwidth
(e.g., in a telephone channel).
• Transmitted pulses will be changed in shape and smeared out in time causing
Inter-symbol interference or ISI.
- Fading
• Signal amplitude can change in a random fashion
- Time Variation
• Time-varying channels cause signal fading.
• Different components of the signal can be faded at different levels and this often
causes random filtering of the signals (hence ISI).
31
 Information Representation
• Communication system converts information into electrical
electromagnetic/optical signals appropriate for the transmission medium.
• Analog systems convert analog message into signals that can propagate
through the channel.

• Digital systems convert bits(digits, symbols) into signals

– Computers naturally generate information as characters/bits

– Most information can be converted into bits
– Analog signals converted to bits by sampling and quantizing (A/D
conversion)
 Why digital?
 Digital techniques need to distinguish between discrete symbols allowing
regeneration versus amplification

 Good processing techniques are available for digital signals, such as

medium.
 Data compression (or source coding)
 Error Correction (or channel coding)(A/D conversion)
 Equalization
 Security

 Easy to mix signals and data using digital techniques

• Basic Digital Communication Transformations
– Formatting/Source Coding
– Transforms source info into digital symbols (digitization)
– Selects compatible waveforms (matching function)
– Introduces redundancy which facilitates accurate decoding
despite errors
• It is essential for reliable communication
– Modulation/Demodulation
– Modulation is the process of modifying the info signal to
facilitate transmission
– Demodulation reverses the process of modulation. It involves
the detection and retrieval of the info signal
• Types
• Coherent: Requires a reference info for detection
• Noncoherent: Does not require reference phase information
 Basic Digital Communication Transformations
– Coding/Decoding
Translating info bits to transmitter data symbols
Techniques used to enhance info signal so that they are less
vulnerable to channel impairment (e.g. noise, fading, jamming,
interference)
• Two Categories
– Waveform Coding
• Produces new waveforms with better performance
– Structured Sequences
• Involves the use of redundant bits to determine the
occurrence of error (and sometimes correct it)
– Multiplexing/Multiple Access Is synonymous with resource
sharing with other users
– Frequency Division Multiplexing/Multiple Access (FDM/FDMA
 Performance Metrics
• Analog Communication Systems
– Metric is fidelity: want mˆ (t )  m(t )
– SNR typically used as performance metric
• Digital Communication Systems
– Metrics are data rate (R bps) and probability of bit error
 P  p( bˆ  b) 
b
– Symbols already known at the receiver
– Without noise/distortion/sync. problem, we will never make
bit errors
 Main Points
• Transmitters modulate analog messages or bits in case of a DCS for
transmission over a channel.
• Receivers recreate signals or bits from received signal (mitigate
channel effects)
• Performance metric for analog systems is fidelity, for digital it is the bit
rate and error probability.
 Why Digital Communications?
– Easy to regenerate the distorted signal
– Regenerative repeaters along the transmission path can detect a
digital signal and retransmit a new, clean (noise free) signal
– These repeaters prevent accumulation of noise along the path
• This is not possible with analog communication systems
– Two-state signal representation
• The input to a digital system is in the form of a sequence
of bits (binary or M_ary)
– Immunity to distortion and interference
– Digital communication is rugged in the sense that it is more
immune to channel noise and distortion
 Why Digital Communications?
– Hardware is more flexible
– Digital hardware implementation is flexible and permits
the use of microprocessors, mini-processors, digital
switching and VLSI
• Shorter design and production cycle
– Low cost
• The use of LSI and VLSI in the design of components and
systems have resulted in lower cost
– Easier and more efficient to multiplex several digital signals
– Digital multiplexing techniques – Time & Code Division
Multiple Access - are easier to implement than analog
techniques such as Frequency Division Multiple Access
 Why Digital Communications?
– Can combine different signal types – data, voice, text, etc.
– Data communication in computers is digital in nature whereas
voice communication between people is analog in nature
– The two types of communication are difficult to combine over
the same medium in the analog domain.
• Using digital techniques, it is possible to combine both
format for transmission through a common medium
• Encryption and privacy techniques are easier to
implement
– Better overall performance
– Digital communication is inherently more efficient than analog
in realizing the exchange of SNR for bandwidth
– Digital signals can be coded to yield extremely low rates and
high fidelity as well as privacy
 Why Digital Communications?
Disadvantages
• Requires reliable “synchronization”
• Requires A/D conversions at high rate
• Requires larger bandwidth
• Performance Criteria
• Probability of error or Bit Error Rate
 Goals in Communication System Design
• To maximize transmission rate, R
• To maximize system utilization, U
• To minimize bit error rate, Pe
• To minimize required systems bandwidth, W
• To minimize system complexity, Cx
• To minimize required power, Eb/No
 Digital Signal Nomenclature

• Information Source
– Discrete output values e.g. Keyboard
– Analog signal source e.g. output of a microphone
• Character
– Member of an alphanumeric/symbol (A to Z, 0 to 9)
– Characters can be mapped into a sequence of binary digits using
one of the standardized codes such as
• ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange
• EBCDIC: Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
 Digital Signal Nomenclature

• Digital Message
– Messages constructed from a finite number of symbols; e.g., printed language
consists of 26 letters, 10 numbers, “space” and several punctuation marks.
Hence a text is a digital message constructed from about 50 symbols
– Morse-coded telegraph message is a digital message constructed from two
symbols “Mark” and “Space”
• M - ary
– A digital message constructed with M symbols
• Digital Waveform
– Current or voltage waveform that represents a digital symbol
• Bit Rate
– Actual rate at which information is transmitted per second
 Digital Signal Nomenclature

• Baud Rate
– Refers to the rate at which the signaling elements are
transmitted, i.e. number of signaling elements per second.

• Bit Error Rate

– The probability that one of the bits is in error or simply the
probability of error
Frequency range for wireless
electromagnetic channels.
[Adapted from Carlson (1975), 2nd edition]

36
 History of Digital Communications
• Nowadays communications is essential to all sectors of society.
Fast and reliable information transmission is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.

• In this era of information technology, it is believed that the

prosperity and continued development of modern nations will
depend primarily on communications.

12
History of Communications

• 1910s Steels and Irons

• 1920s Automobiles
• 1930s Aviation
• 1940s Electronics
• 1950s Atomic Energy
• 1960s Petroleum
• 1970s Semi-Conductor
• 1980s PCs
• 1990s Internet

2010s Wireless Internet/ Mobile Internet/ 3G, 4G

• 2020s, 5G, 40G Optical Comm ?
 Land Mark in Ethiopian Telecommunication

• 1894 First long distance telephone ckt

• ----from A.A –Harar
• 1902-------from A.A to Asmera
• 1930 first radio Tx and RX established
• 1932 Ethiopia become a member of ITU
• 1933 radio station set up-linked with Cairo, Djibouti
• 1936 war damaged all facility
• 1968 Microwave system
• 1979 establishment of satellite station (sululta)
 Wireless Revolution

Mobile TV
Mobile Internet
Voice
WiFi
SMS

Email

Video

Yesterday - 2000 Today - 2018

Millions of wireless devices Billions of wireless devices
3
Wireless Revolution

4
 Wireless Revolution

Ericsson Mobility Report June 2015

• Worldwide
- 8 billion mobiles (April 2015)
- Almost = the world population
– China, 1.24 billion (Jan 2015)
- -Ethiopia, 62 million 5
 Wireless Everywhere

Medical Distributed
applications Environmental
Various & Bio Sensing
Info/Media
Next
generation
phones
Security

Smart RFID
New Mobile
Devices

People to People People to Machines Machines to Machines

Tomorrow
Trillions of Wireless devices 7
Wireless will continue to grow!

• 3D internet with
high definition
• Mobile 3D
projector
• Telepresence
• …
8
Wireless will continue to grow!

9
 Regulation of Radio Spectrum
• Government effectively owns radio spectrum and regulates it
-

• Ethio-telecom coordinates spectrum with the world authority ITU

(International Telecommunications Union)
• ITU is an organization under the United Nations
- Headquartered in Geneva
- Web site http//www.itu.int/
• Radio spectrum is expensive

38
Challenges

10
 What makes Communications Systems
Challenging?
• Transmission in a particular application depends on
many factors. This includes:
 information rate (bit rate)
 cost
 number of users
 quality of service (BER, Delay, SNR)
 medium over which the information is to be sent -
Channel.

• Example: wireless systems requires a different design from an

optical fibre communications link.

40
 What are the Features of a Good
Communication System?
• Small signal power (measured in Watts or dBm)
• Large data rate (measured in bits/sec)
• Small bandwidth (measured in Hertz)
• Low distortion (measured in SNR or bit error rate)
• Low cost - with digital communications, large complexity does
not always result in large cost

In practice, there must be tradeoffs made in achieving

these goals

41
 System Design Tradeoffs
Data Rate vs. Bandwidth
• Bandwidth Efficiency
- defined as the ratio of data rate R to bandwidth W
(bits/sec/Hz)
Want large bandwidth efficiency
- Typical current wireless systems provide < 1bit/sec/Hz
- Newly researched systems can provide > 10bits/sec/Hz
• Increased data rate leads to shorter data pulses which leads to
larger bandwidth
- This tradeoff (Data Rate vs. Bandwidth) cannot be avoided.
• Some modulation schemes use bandwidth more efficiently than
others.

42
 System Design Tradeoffs
Fidelity vs. Signal Power
• Energy Efficiency
• defined as the ratio of transmitted data to consumed
energy (bits/Joule)
Want Energy Efficient modulation schemes
• One way to get an error free signal would be to use
huge amounts of power to blast over the noise
- Not practical.
• Some types of modulation achieve relatively error
free transmission at lower powers than others

43