Chapter-1: Introduction

The purpose of a Communication System is to transport an information bearing signal from a

source to a user destination via a communication channel.

MODEL OF A COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

Information I/P Signal

Source and TRANSMITTER
Input
CHANNEL

O/P Signal
Destination and
RECEIVER
Output
Transducer

Fig. 1.1: Block diagram of Communication System.

The three basic elements of every communication systems are Transmitter, Receiver and
Channel.
The Overall purpose of this system is to transfer information from one point (called
Source) to another point, the user destination.
The message produced by a source, normally, is not electrical. Hence an input transducer
is used for converting the message to a time – varying electrical quantity called message signal.
Similarly, at the destination point, another transducer converts the electrical waveform to the
appropriate message.
The transmitter is located at one point in space, the receiver is located at some other point
separate from the transmitter, and the channel is the medium that provides the electrical
connection between them.
The purpose of the transmitter is to transform the message signal produced by the source
of information into a form suitable for transmission over the channel.
The received signal is normally corrupted version of the transmitted signal, which is due
to channel imperfections, noise and interference from other sources.
The receiver has the task of operating on the received signal so as to reconstruct a
recognizable form of the original message signal and to deliver it to the user destination.

Communication Systems are divided into 3 categories:

1. Analog Communication Systems are designed to transmit analog information using
analog modulation methods.
2. Digital Communication Systems are designed for transmitting digital information using
digital modulation schemes, and
3. Hybrid Systems that use digital modulation schemes for transmitting sampled and
quantized values of an analog message signal.
ELEMENTS OF DIGITAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS:

The figure 1.2 shows the functional elements of a digital communication system.
Source of Information: 1. Analog Information Sources.
2. Digital Information Sources.

Analog Information Sources → Microphone actuated by a speech, TV Camera scanning a scene,

continuous amplitude signals.

Digital Information Sources → These are teletype or the numerical output of computer which
consists of a sequence of discrete symbols or letters.

An Analog information is transformed into a discrete information through the process of

sampling and quantizing.

Digital Communication System

Source of Source Channel

Information Encoder Encoder
Modulator
Wave fo

Binary Stream
Channel

Received Signal

User of Source Channel

Demodulator
Information Decoder Decoder

Fig 1.2: Block Diagram of a Digital Communication System

SOURCE ENCODER / DECODER:

The Source encoder ( or Source coder) converts the input i.e. symbol sequence into a
binary sequence of 0’s and 1’s by assigning code words to the symbols in the input sequence.
For eg. :-If a source set is having hundred symbols, then the number of bits used to represent
each symbol will be 7 because 27=128 unique combinations are available. The important
parameters of a source encoder are block size, code word lengths, average data rate and the
efficiency of the coder (i.e. actual output data rate compared to the minimum achievable rate)
 At the receiver, the source decoder converts the binary output of the channel decoder into
a symbol sequence. The decoder for a system using fixed – length code words is quite simple,
but the decoder for a system using variable – length code words will be very complex.

Aim of the source coding is to remove the redundancy in the transmitting information, so
that bandwidth required for transmission is minimized. Based on the probability of the symbol
code word is assigned. Higher the probability, shorter is the codeword.
Ex: Huffman coding.

CHANNEL ENCODER / DECODER:

Error control is accomplished by the channel coding operation that consists of

systematically adding extra bits to the output of the source coder. These extra bits do not convey
any information but helps the receiver to detect and / or correct some of the errors in the
information bearing bits.

There are two methods of channel coding:

1. Block Coding: The encoder takes a block of ‘k’ information bits from the source encoder
and adds ‘r’ error control bits, where ‘r’ is dependent on ‘k’ and error control capabilities
desired.
2. Convolution Coding: The information bearing message stream is encoded in a continuous
fashion by continuously interleaving information bits and error control bits.

The Channel decoder recovers the information bearing bits from the coded binary stream. Error
detection and possible correction is also performed by the channel decoder.
The important parameters of coder / decoder are: Method of coding, efficiency, error control
capabilities and complexity of the circuit.

MODULATOR:
The Modulator converts the input bit stream into an electrical waveform suitable for
transmission over the communication channel. Modulator can be effectively used to minimize
the effects of channel noise, to match the frequency spectrum of transmitted signal with channel
characteristics, to provide the capability to multiplex many signals.

DEMODULATOR:
The extraction of the message from the information bearing waveform produced by the
modulation is accomplished by the demodulator. The output of the demodulator is bit stream.
The important parameter is the method of demodulation.
CHANNEL:
The Channel provides the electrical connection between the source and destination. The
different channels are: Pair of wires, Coaxial cable, Optical fibre, Radio channel, Satellite
channel or combination of any of these.
The communication channels have only finite Bandwidth, non-ideal frequency response,
the signal often suffers amplitude and phase distortion as it travels over the channel. Also, the
signal power decreases due to the attenuation of the channel. The signal is corrupted by
unwanted, unpredictable electrical signals referred to as noise.
The important parameters of the channel are Signal to Noise power Ratio (SNR), usable
bandwidth, amplitude and phase response and the statistical properties of noise.

Modified Block Diagram: (With additional blocks)

From Other Sources

Encrypt Channel Modulat

Source
er Encoder or
Encoder
Source Mux

Channel

Destinat De Demodu
Source
ion cryptor lator
Decoder
Channel Demux

To other Destinations

Fig 1.3 : Block diagram with additional blocks

Some additional blocks as shown in the block diagram are used in most of digital
communication system:

• Encryptor: Encryptor prevents unauthorized users from understanding the messages and
from injecting false messages into the system.

• MUX : Multiplexer is used for combining signals from different sources so that they
share a portion of the communication system.
 • DeMUX: DeMultiplexer is used for separating the different signals so that they reach
their respective destinations.

• Decryptor: It does the reverse operation of that of the Encryptor.

Synchronization: Synchronization involves the estimation of both time and frequency coherent
systems need to synchronize their frequency reference with carrier in both frequency and phase.

Advantages of Digital Communication

1. The effect of distortion, noise and interference is less in a digital communication system.
This is because the disturbance must be large enough to change the pulse from one state
to the other.

2. Regenerative repeaters can be used at fixed distance along the link, to identify and
regenerate a pulse before it is degraded to an ambiguous state.

3. Digital circuits are more reliable and cheaper compared to analog circuits.

4. The Hardware implementation is more flexible than analog hardware because of the use
of microprocessors, VLSI chips etc.

5. Signal processing functions like encryption, compression can be employed to maintain

the secrecy of the information.

6. Error detecting and Error correcting codes improve the system performance by reducing
the probability of error.

7. Combining digital signals using TDM is simpler than combining analog signals using
FDM. The different types of signals such as data, telephone, TV can be treated as
identical signals in transmission and switching in a digital communication system.

8. We can avoid signal jamming using spread spectrum technique.

Disadvantages of Digital Communication:

1. Large System Bandwidth:- Digital transmission requires a large system bandwidth to

communicate the same information in a digital format as compared to analog format.

2. System Synchronization:- Digital detection requires system synchronization whereas the

analog signals generally have no such requirement.
Channels for Digital Communications
The modulation and coding used in a digital communication system depend on the
characteristics of the channel. The two main characteristics of the channel are BANDWIDTH
and POWER. In addition the other characteristics are whether the channel is linear or nonlinear,
and how free the channel is free from the external interference.

Five channels are considered in the digital communication, namely: telephone channels,
coaxial cables, optical fibers, microwave radio, and satellite channels.

Telephone channel: It is designed to provide voice grade communication. Also good for data
communication over long distances. The channel has a band-pass characteristic occupying the
frequency range 300Hz to 3400hz, a high SNR of about 30db, and approximately linear
response.
For the transmission of voice signals the channel provides flat amplitude response. But
for the transmission of data and image transmissions, since the phase delay variations are
important an equalizer is used to maintain the flat amplitude response and a linear phase
response over the required frequency band. Transmission rates upto16.8 kilobits per second
have been achieved over the telephone lines.

Coaxial Cable: The coaxial cable consists of a single wire conductor centered inside an outer
conductor, which is insulated from each other by a dielectric. The main advantages of the coaxial
cable are wide bandwidth and low external interference. But closely spaced repeaters are
required. With repeaters spaced at 1km intervals the data rates of 274 megabits per second have
been achieved.

Optical Fibers: An optical fiber consists of a very fine inner core made of silica glass,
surrounded by a concentric layer called cladding that is also made of glass. The refractive index
of the glass in the core is slightly higher than refractive index of the glass in the cladding. Hence
if a ray of light is launched into an optical fiber at the right oblique acceptance angle, it is
continually refracted into the core by the cladding. That means the difference between the
refractive indices of the core and cladding helps guide the propagation of the ray of light inside
the core of the fiber from one end to the other.
Compared to coaxial cables, optical fibers are smaller in size and they offer higher
transmission bandwidths and longer repeater separations.

Microwave radio: A microwave radio, operating on the line-of-sight link, consists basically of a
transmitter and a receiver that are equipped with antennas. The antennas are placed on towers at
sufficient height to have the transmitter and receiver in line-of-sight of each other. The operating
frequencies range from 1 to 30 GHz.
Under normal atmospheric conditions, a microwave radio channel is very reliable and
provides path for high-speed digital transmission. But during meteorological variations, a severe
degradation occurs in the system performance.

Satellite Channel: A Satellite channel consists of a satellite in geostationary orbit, an uplink

from ground station, and a down link to another ground station. Both link operate at microwave
frequencies, with uplink the uplink frequency higher than the down link frequency. In general,
Satellite can be viewed as repeater in the sky. It permits communication over long distances at
higher bandwidths and relatively low cost.