Digital Communication : 21EC51

Faculty:

Sowmya B J
Assistant Professor
Dept. of ECE, SJBIT
 • Spread-spectrum signals for digital communications were originally developed and
used for military communications either (a) to provide resistance to jamming (antijam
protection), or (b) to hide the signal by transmitting it at low power, which made it
difficult for an unintended listener to detect its presence in noise (low probability of
intercept).
• However, spread-spectrum signals now provide reliable communications in a variety
of commercial applications, including digital cellular communications, cordless
telephones, and interoffice wireless communications.

MODEL OF A SPREAD-SPECTRUM DIGITAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• The basic elements of a spread-spectrum digital communication system are illustrated

in Figure 15.1.
• The channel encoder and decoder and the modulator and demodulator are the basic
elements of a conventional digital communication system.
• In addition, a spread-spectrum system employs two identical pseudorandom sequence
generators, one that interfaces with the modulator at the transmitting end and one that
interfaces with the demodulator at the receiving end.
• These two generators produce a pseudorandom or pseudonoise (PN) binary-valued
sequence, which is used to spread the transmitted signal at the modulator and to
despread the received signal at the demodulator.
• Time synchronization of the PN sequence generated at the receiver with the PN
sequence contained in the received signal is required to properly despread the
received spread-spectrum signal.
 • In a practical system, synchronization is established prior to the transmission of
information; this is achieved by transmitting a fixed PN bit pattern, which is designed
so that the receiver will detect it with high probability in the presence of interference.
• After time synchronization of the PN sequence generators is established, the
transmission of information commences.

• Interference is introduced in the transmission of the spread-spectrum signal through

the channel. The characteristics of the interference depend to a large extent on its
origin.
• The interference may be generally categorized as either broadband or narrowband
(partial band) relative to the bandwidth of the information-bearing signal and either
continuous in time or discontinuous (pulsed) in time.
• Two types of digital modulation are considered, namely, phase-shift keying (PSK)
and frequencyshift keying (FSK). PSK modulation is appropriate for applications
where phase coherence between the transmitted signal and the received signal can be
maintained over a time interval that spans several symbol (or bit) intervals. On the
other hand, FSK modulation is appropriate in applications where phase coherence of
the carrier cannot be maintained due to time variations in the transmission
characteristics of the communications channel.
• The PN sequence generated at the modulator is used in conjunction with the PSK
modulation to shift the phase of the PSK signal pseudorandomly at a rate that is an
integer multiple of the bit rate. The resulting modulated signal is called a direct
sequence (DS) spread-spectrum signal. When used in conjunction with binary or M-
ary (M > 2) FSK, the PN sequence is used to select the frequency of the transmitted
signal pseudorandomly. The resulting signal is called afrequency-hopped (FH)
spread-spectrum signal.

DIRECT SEQUENCE SPREAD-SPECTRUM SYSTEMS

• Consider the transmission of a binary information sequence by means of binary PSK.

The information rate is R bits per second, and the bit interval is Tb = 1/ R seconds.
• The available channel bandwidth is Bc Hz, where Bc » R. At the modulator, the
bandwidth of the information signal is expanded to W = Bc Hz by shifting the phase
of the carrier pseudorandomly at a rate of W times per second according to the pattern
of the PN generator.
The basic method for accomplishing the spreading is shown in Figure 15.2.
DEMODULATION OF DS SPREAD SPECTRUM:
Matched filter.

EFFECT OF DESPREADING ON A NARROWBAND INTERFERENCE

SOME APPLICATIONS OF DS SPREAD-SPECTRUM SIGNAL

• We briefly describe the use of DS spread-spectrum signals in four applications.

• First, we consider an application in which the signal is transmitted at very low power,
so that a listener trying to detect the presence of the signal would encounter great
difficulty in doing so.
• A second application is multiple access radio communications.
• A third application involves the use of a DS spread-spectrum signal to resolve the
multipath in a time-dispersive radio channel.
• The fourth application is the use of DS spread-spectrum signals in wireless local area
networks (LANs).

1. Low-Detectability Signal Transmission:

• In this application, the information-bearing signal is transmitted at a very low
power level relative to the background channel noise and thermal noise that is
generated in the front end of a receiver.
• If the DS spread-spectrum signal occupies a bandwidth W and the power
spectral density of the additive noise is No W/Hz, the average noise power in
the bandwidth W is PN = WNo.
• The average received signal power at the intended receiver is PR . If we wish
to hide the presence of the signal from receivers that are in the vicinity of the
intended receiver, the signal is transmitted at a power level such that
PR/ PN « 1.
• The intended receiver can recover the weak information-bearing signal from
the background noise with the aid of the processing gain and the coding gain.
• However, any other receiver that has no knowledge of the PN code sequence
is unable to take advantage of the processing gain and the coding gain.
• Consequently, the presence of the information-bearing signal is difficult to
detect. We say that the transmitted signal has a low probability of being
intercepted (LPI), and it is called an LPI signal.

2. Code Division Multiple Access:

• The enhancement in performance obtained from a DS spread-spectrum signal
through the processing gain and the coding gain can enable many DS spread-
spectrum signals to occupy the same channel bandwidth provided that each
signal has its own pseudorandom (signature) sequence. Thus, it is possible to
have several users transmit messages simultaneously over the same channel
bandwidth.
• This type of digital communication, in which each transmitter-receiver user
pair has its own distinct signature code for transmitting over a common
channel bandwidth, is called code division multiple access (CDMA).
• In the demodulation of each DS spread-spectrum signal, the signals from the
other simultaneous users of the channel appear as additive interference. The
 level of interference varies as a function of the number of users of the channel
at any given time.
• A major advantage of CDMA is that a large number of users can be
accommodated if each user transmits messages for a short period of time. In
such a multiple access system, it is relatively easy to add new users or to
decrease the number of users without reconfiguring the system.
• Next, we determine the number of simultaneous signals that can be
accommodated in a CDMA system. For simplicity, we assume that all signals
have identical average powers.
• If there are Nu simultaneous users, the desired signal-to-noise interference
power ratio at a given receiver is

• In determining the maximum number of simultaneous users of the channel, we

implicitly assumed that the pseudorandom code sequences used by the various
users are uncorrelated and that the interference from other users adds on a
power basis only.

3. Communication over Channels with Multipath

• DS spread spectrum is a particularly effective way to generate a wideband
signal for resolving multipath signal components. By separating the multipath
components, we may also reduce the effects of fading. For example, in line-of-
sight (LOS) communication systems where there is a direct path and a
secondary propagation path resulting from signals reflecting from buildings
and surrounding terrain, the demodulator at the receiver may synchronize to
the direct signal component and ignore the existence of the multipath
component. In such a case, the multipath component becomes a form of
interference [intersymbol interference (ISI)] on the demodulation of
subsequent transmitted signals.
• ISI can be avoided if we are willing to reduce the symbol rate 1/T, such that
T » Tm. In this case, we employ a DS spread-spectrum signal with a
bandwidth W to resolve the multipath.
• Thus, the channel is frequency selective and the appropriate channel model is
the tapped-delay-line model with time-varying coefficients. The optimum
demodulator for this channel is a filter matched to the tapped-delay channel
model called the RAKE demodulator.

4. Wireless LANs
• Spread-spectrum signals have been used in the IEEE wireless LAN standards
802.11 and 802.11 b, which operate in the 2.4 GHz ISM (industrial, scientific,
and medical) unlicensed frequency band.
 • The available bandwidth is subdivided into 14 overlapping 22 MHz channels,
although not all channels are used in all countries. In the United States, only
channels 1 through 11 are used.
• In the 802.11 standard, an 11-chip Barker sequence is modulated and
transmitted at a chip rate of 11 MHz, i.e., the chip duration is 0.909 µsec. The
11-chip Barker sequence is { 1, -1, 1, 1, -1, 1, 1, 1, -1, -1, -1}.
• The Barker sequence is modulated either with BPSK or QPSK. When BPSK is
used with 11 chips per bit, a data rate of 1 Mbps is achieved. When QPSK
modulation is used with 11 chips per symbol (2 bits), a data rate of 2 Mbps is
achieved.
• Direct sequence spread spectrum is also used in the higher speed (second
generation) IEEE 802.11 b wireless LAN standard, which operates in the same
2.4 GHz ISM band.
• In 802.l l b, the 11-MHz chip rate is maintained, but the Barker sequence is
replaced by a set of 8-chip waveform sequences, called complementary code
shift keying (CCK), which can be viewed as direct-sequence spread-spectrum
modulation with multiple spreading sequences. The use of CCK modulation
results in a data rate of 11 Mbps.

GENERATION OF PN SEQUENCES:

• A pseudorandom or pseudonoise sequence is a code sequence of 1 's and O's whose

autocorrelation has properties similar to those of white noise. The most widely known
binary PN code sequences are the maximum-length shift register sequences.
• A maximum-length shift-register sequence, or m-sequence for short, has the length L
= 2m - 1 bits and is generated by an m-stage shift register with linear feedback, as
illustrated in Figure 15.6.
• The sequence is periodic with period L. Each period contains 2m-1 ones and 2m-1 -1
zeros.
• Table 15.1 lists shift register connections for generating maximum-length sequences.
• In DS spread-spectrum applications, the binary sequence with elements {0, 1} is
mapped into a corresponding binary sequence with elements { -1, 1}. We shall call
the equivalent sequence{ Cn } with elements {-1, 1} a bipolar sequence.
• Using m stage shift register register( m F/F’s) , it is possible to generate a periodic
sequence of length 2m -1 bits.Such sequence is also called maximum length sequence.
• Shift register operation is controlled by a sequence of clock pulses.For every clock
pulse, the contents of each stage of the register is shifted by one position to the right.

• For every clock pulse, the contents of 2nd and 3rd stages are module 2 added and the
result is fed back to the 1st stage.

• Output of the shift register is taken at the last stage of the flip flop means at Q3

• Q3 = 0111001,0111001

• The PN sequence is periodic with period equal to 7 bits

Properties of PN sequence

• 3 properties: 1)Balanced Property. 2)Run Property. 3)Auto correlation property

1) Balanced property:

• In each period of a ML sequence , the number of 1’s is always one more than the
number of 0’s.( no. of ones exceeds zeros by one)

• Ex: for 3 stage shift register N=23 -1 =7

• No. Of 1’s =4 and No.of 0’s =3

2) Run property:
• A run is defined as a subsequence of identical symbols within the M, sequence.
• The length of the subsequence is known as run length.
• Total no of runs =(N+1)/2
• In ML sequence I) one half of the runs are of length one. II) One fourth of the runs
are of length two. iii)one eight of the runs are of length three
• Ex:0010111. Total no of runs=(N+1)/2 =(7+1)/2=4 runs
111—-one run of length 3
00—one run of length 2
1—one run of length 1
0—one run of length 1

3) Autocorrelation property:
The autocorrelation function of a ML sequence is periodic and binary valued.

FREQUENCY-HOPPED SPREAD SPECTRUM

• In FH spread spectrum, the available channel bandwidth W is subdivided into a large

number of nonoverlapping frequency slots. In any signaling interval, the transmitted
signal occupies one or more of the available frequency slots. The selection of the
frequency slot (s) in each signal interval is made pseudorandornly according to the
output from a PN generator.
• A block diagram of the transmitter and receiver for an FH spread-spectrum system is
shown in Figure 15.8.
• The modulation is either binary or M-ary FSK (MFSK). For example, if binary FSK is
employed, the modulator selects one of two frequencies, such as Jo or /1,
corresponding to the transmission of a 0 or a 1.
• The resulting binary FSK signal is translated in frequency by an amount determined
by the output sequence from a PN generator, which is used to select a frequency fc
that is synthesized by the frequency synthesizer.
• This frequency is mixed with the output of the FSK modulator and the resultant signal
is transmitted over the channel. For example, by taking m bits from the PN generator,
we may specify 2m - 1 possible carrier frequencies. Figure 15.9 illustrates an FH
signal pattern.
• At the receiver, there is an identical PN sequence generator, which is synchronized
with the received signal and is used to control the output of the frequency synthesizer.
• Thus, the pseudorandom frequency translation introduced at the transmitter is
removed at the demodulator by mixing the synthesizer output with the received
signal. The resultant signal is then demodulated via an FSK demodulator.
• A signal for maintaining synchronism of the PN sequence generator with the FH
received signal is usually extracted from the received signal.
• The frequency-hopping rate, denoted as Rh, may be either equal to the symbol rate,
lower than the symbol rate, or higher than the symbol rate.
• If Rh is equal to or lower than the symbol rate, the FH system is called a slow hopping
system.
• If Rh is higher than the symbol rate, i.e., there are multiple hops per symbol, the FH
system is called a fast hopping system.
• FH spread-spectrum signals may be used in CDMA where many users share a
common bandwidth. In some cases, an FH signal is preferred because of the stringent
synchronization requirements inherent in DS spread-spectrum signals.
• Specifically, in a DS system, timing and synchronization must be established to
within a fraction of a chip interval Tc = 1/W.
• On the other hand, in an FH system, the chip interval Tc is the time spent in
transmitting a signal in a particular frequency slot of bandwidth B«W. But this
interval is approximately 1/B, which is much larger than 1/W. Hence, the timing
requirements in an FH system are not as stringent as in a DS system.

• In FH system , an FH tone of shortest duration is referred as chip.

• Chip rate Rc for a FH system is Rc = max(Rh,Rs).

Slow Frequency Hopping Spread spectrum:

• For SFHSS, Rs > Rh, chip rate = Symbol rate , hence Rc= Rs

• Relation between chip rate (Rc), bit rate(Rc), Symbol rate(Rs) and hop rate( Rh) is
given by. Rc=Rs=Rb/k > Rh , k=log2 m

• Mary , if M=2 binary, k=1, M=2 k=2

• Processing gain(PG): = BW of spreaded signal/BW of unspreaded signal=BW of FH

signal/BW of base band signal

• If fs is the symbol frequency, 2k frequency hops generated because k bits of PN

sequence.

• BW of the FH signal is 2k * fs and BW of the unspreaded signal is fs

• PG=(2k * fs)/fs= 2k

Fast Frequency Hopping Spread spectrum:

• Chip rate Rc for a FH system is Rc= max( Rh, Rs), chip rate = hop rate , Rc=Rh.

• Advantage of Fast FH SS:

1) Before the jammer tries to do reception of one symbol completely, the carrier
frequency is changed.

2)Greatest amount of spreading ( system BW is very large)

 3)More secured than DS SS

4)Fast FHSS have relatively short acquisition time

5)The distance effect is less.

CDMA System Based on IS-95

• Direct sequence CDMA has been adopted as one multiple-access method for digital
cellular voice communications in North America. This first generation digital cellular
(CDMA) communication system was developed by Qualcomm, and it has been
standardized and designated as IS-95 by the Telecommunications Industry
Association (TIA) for use in the 800 MHz and the 1900 MHz frequency bands.
• A major advantage of CDMA over other multiple access methods is that the entire
frequency band is available at each base station, i.e., the frequency reuse factor N = 1.
• The nominal bandwidth used for transmission from a base station to the mobile
receivers (forward link) is 1.25 MHz. A separate channel, also with a bandwidth of
1.25 MHz, is used for signal transmission from mobile receivers to a base station
(reverse link).
• The signals transmitted in both the forward and the reverse links are DS spread
spectrum signal and they have a chip rate of 1 .2288 x 106 chips per second ( l.2288
Mchips/sec).

Forward Link :

• A block diagram of the modulator for the signals transmitted from a base station to
the mobile receivers is shown in Figure 15.25. The speech coder is a code-excited
linear predictive (CELP) coder that generates data at the variable rates of 9600, 4800,
2400, and 1200 bits/sec, where the data rate is a function of the user's speech activity
in frame intervals of 20 msec.
 • The data from the speech coder is encoded by a rate 1/2, constraint length L = 9
convolutional code. For lower speech activity, where the data rates are 4800, 2400, or
1200 bits/sec, the output symbols from the convolutional encoder are repeated either
twice, four times, or eight times to maintain a constant bit rate of 9600 bits/sec.
• At the lower speech activity rates, the transmitter power is reduced by either 3, 6, or 9
dB, so that the transmitted energy per bit remains constant for all speech rates. Thus, a
lower speech activity results in a lower transmitter power and, hence, a lower level of
interference to other users.
• The encoded bits for each frame are passed through a block interleaver, which
overcomes the effects of burst errors that may occur in transmission through the
channel.
• The data bits at the output of the block interleaver, which occur at a rate of 19.2
kbits/sec, are scrambled by multiplication with the output of a long code (period N =
2 42 - 1) generator running at the chip rate of 1.2288 Mchips/sec, but whose output is
decimated by a factor of 64 to 19.2 kchips/sec.
• Each channel user is assigned a Hadamard (also called a Walsh) sequence of length
64. There are 64 orthogonal Hadamard sequences assigned to each base station; thus,
there are 64 channels available. One Hadamard sequence (the all-zero sequence) is
used to transmit a pilot signal, which serves as a means for measuring the channel
characteristics, including the signal strength and the carrier phase offset. These
parameters are used at the receiver to perform phase coherent demodulation. Another
Hadamard sequence is used to provide time synchronization. One channel, and
possibly more if necessary, is used for paging. That leaves up to 61 channels for
allocation to different users.
• Each encoded data bit is multiplied by the Hadamard sequence of length 64. The
resulting binary sequence is now spread by multiplication with two PN sequences of
length N = 2 15 : this creates in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) signal components. Thus,
the binary data signal is converted to a four-phase signal and both the I and Q
components are filtered by baseband spectral-shaping filters. Different base stations
are identified by different offsets of these PN sequences. The signals for all 64
channels are transmitted synchronously so that, in the absence of channel multipath
distortion, other signals received at any mobile receiver do not interfere because of the
orthogonality of the Hadamard sequence.

Reverse link:

• The reverse link modulator from a mobile transmitter to a base station is different
from the forward link modulator. A block diagram of the modulator is shown in
Figure 15.26.
• An important consideration in the design of the modulator is that signals transmitted
from the various mobile transmitters to the base station are asynchronous; hence,
there is significantly more interference among users. In addition, the mobile
transmitters are usually battery operated; consequently, these transmissions are power
limited.
• To compensate for these major limitations, a rate 1/3, K = 9 convolutional code is
used in the reverse link. This code has essentially the same coding gain in an AWGN
channel as the rate 1 /2 code used in the forward link.
• However, it has a much higher coding gain in a fading channel. Again, for lower
speech activity, output bits from the convolutional encoder are repeated either two,
four, or eight times. However, the coded bit rate is 28.8 kbits/sec.
• For each 20-msec frame, the 576 encoded bits are block-interleaved and passed to the
modulator. The data are modulated using an M = 64 orthogonal signal set of
Hadamard sequences each of length 64. Thus, a 6-bit block of data is mapped into one
of the 64 Hadamard sequences.
• The result is a bit (or chip) rate of 307 .2 kbits/sec at the output of the modulator. Note
that 64-ary orthogonal modulation at an error probability of 10-6 requires
approximately 3.5 dB less SNR per bit than binary antipodal signaling in an AWGN
channel.
• To reduce interference to other users, the time position of the transmitted code symbol
repetitions is randomized; thus, at the lower speech activity, consecutive bursts are not
evenly spaced in time.
• Following the randomizer, the signal is spread by the output of the long code PN
generator, which is running at a rate of 1 .2288 Mchips/sec. Hence, there are only four
PN chips for every bit of the Hadamard sequence from the modulator, so the
processing gain in the reverse link is very small.
• The resulting 1 .2288-Mchips/sec binary sequences of length N = 2 15 , whose rate is
also 1 .2288 Mchips/sec, create I and Q signals (a QPSK signal) that are filtered by
baseband spectral shaping filters and then passed to quadrature mixers. The Q-channel
signal is delayed in time by one-half PN chip relative to the I -channel signal prior to
the baseband filter. In effect, the signal at the output of the two baseband filters is an
offset QPSK signal.