Chapter 7

Fundamentals of Digital
Transmission
Baseband Transmission (Line codes)
Bit Value 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
ON-OFF
or 5V
Unipolar
(NRZ)
Non-Return-to-Zero 0V

Bit Value 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1

5V
Polar
(NRZ)
0V

–5 V
Performance Criteria of Line Codes
 Zero DC value
 Inherent Bit-Synchronization
 Rich in transitions
 Average Transmitted Power
 For a given Bit Error Rate (BER)
 Spectral Efficiency (Bandwidth)
 Inversely proportional to pulse width.
Comparison Between On-Off and Polar
 Zero DC value:
 Polar is better.
 Bandwidth:
 Comparable
 Power:
 BER is proportional to the difference between the two levels
 For the same difference between the two levels, Polar
consumes half the power of on-off scheme.
 Bit Synchronization:
 Both are poor (think of long sequence of same bit)
More Line Codes
Bit Value 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1

On-Off RZ 5V
Better synch.,
at extra
bandwidth
0V

Bit Value 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1

Bi-Polar 5V
Better synch.,
at same
bandwidth
0V

–5 V
More Line Codes
Bit Value 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
Polar RZ
Perfect synch 5V
3 levels

0V

–5 V

Bit Value 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
Manchester
(Bi-Phase) 5V
Perfect Synch.
2 levels
0V or -5V
Spectra of Some Line Codes

1.2 On-Off
(NRZ)
1

0.8
Bipolar (NRZ)
power density

0.6

0.4
Manchester
0.2

0
0

2
0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8
-0.2
fT
Pulse Shaping
 The line codes presented above have been
demonstrated using (rectangular) pulses.
 There are two problems in transmitting such
pulses:
 They require infinite bandwidth.
 When transmitted over bandlimited channels
become time unlimited on the other side, and spread
over adjacent symbols, resulting in Inter-Symbol-
Interference (ISI).
Nyquist-Criterion for Zero ISI
 Use a pulse that has the following characteristics

1 t 0
p (t )  
0 t  T b ,  2T b ,  3T b ,

 One such pulse is the sinc function.

The Sinc Pulse
p(t)
1

t
-6Tb -5Tb -4Tb -3Tb -2Tb -Tb Tb 2Tb 3Tb 4Tb 5Tb 6Tb

Note that such pulse has a bandwidth of Rb/2 Hz. P(f)

Therefore, the minimum channel bandwidth
required for transmitting pulses at a rate
of Rb pulses/sec is Rb/2 Hz
-1/(2Tb) 1/(2Tb)
f
Zero ISI

0
-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4

-1
More on Pulse Shaping
 The sinc pulse has the minimum bandwidth
among pulses satisfying Nyquist criterion.
 However, the sinc pulse is not fast decaying;
 Misalignment in sampling results in significant ISI.
 Requires long delays for realization.
 There is a set of pulses that satisfy the Nyquist
criterion and decay at a faster rate. However,
they require bandwidth more than Rb/2.
Raised-Cosine Pulses
1      b / 2    b
 1  sin     x
 2   2x  2
 

 b
P ( )   0    x
 2
 b
 1    x
2



where b is 2Rb and x is the excess bandwidth. It defines how much

bandwidth required above the minimum bandwidth of a sinc pulse,
where 
0  x  b
2
Spectrum of Raised-Cosine Pulses

P() x x


b/2
=/Tb
b/2 – x b/2 + x
Extremes of Raised-Cosine Spectra
P() x = b/2
x = 0
“Sinc”
b/2 b/2


b/2 b
=/Tb =2/Tb

Excess Bandwidth x 2x

r  
Minimum Bandwidth b / 2 b
Raised-Cosine Pulses
Bandwidth Requirement of Passband
Transmission
 Passband transmission requires double the
bandwidth of baseband transmission.
 Therefore, the minimum bandwidth required to
transmit Rb pulses/sec using carrier modulation
is Rb Hz.
Transmission rates of Typical Services

Speech
Audio
Fax
Coloured Image
Video
 Speech (PCM)
 B = 3.4 kHz
 Rs = 8000 samples/sec
 Encoding = 8 bits/sample
 Transmission rate = 64 kbps
 Required bandwidth (passband) = 64 kHz
 One hour of speech = 64000x3600 = 230.4 Mb
 Audio
 B = 16-24 kHz
 Rs = 44 000 samples/sec
 Encoding = 16 bits/sample
 Stereo type = 2 channels
 Transmission rate = 1.4 Mbps
 Fax
 Resolution 200x100 pixels/square inch
 1 bit/pixel (white or black)
 A4 Paper size = 8x12 inch
 Total size = 1.92 Mb = 240 KB
 Over a basic telephone channel (3.4 kHz, baseband) it
takes around 4.7 minutes to send one page.
 Colour Image (still pictures)
 Resolution 400x400 pixels/inch square
 8 bits/pixel
 3 colours/photo
 A 8x10 inch picture is represented by
307.2 Mb = 38.4 MB !
 Video (moving pictures)
 Size of still pictures
 15 frames/sec
 307 Mb/frame x 15 frames/sec = 4605 Mbps =4.6 Gbps !!
Solutions

Compression
 reduces data size
M-ary communication
 Expands channel ability to carry information
M-ary Transmission
 In the binary case one pulse carries one bit.
 Let each pulse carry (represent) m bits.
 Bit rate becomes m multiples of pulse rate
 We need to generate 2m different pulses.
 They can be generated based on:
 Multiple Amplitudes (baseband and passband)
 Multiple Phases (passband)
 Multiple frequencies (passband)
 Some combination (Amplitude and Phase).
Signal Constellation
 Signal constellation is a convenient way of
representing transmitted pulses.
 Each pulse is represented by a point in a 2-dimensional
space.
 The square of the distance to the origin represents the
pulse energy.
 The received signals form clouds around the
transmitted pulses.
 A received points is decoded to the closest pulse point.
Multiple Amplitudes (PAM)

0 1 00 10 11 01 000100 110 010 011111 101 001

2 “levels” 4 “levels” 8 “levels”

1 bits / pulse 2 bits / pulse 3 bits / pulse
B bits per second 2×B bits per second 3×B bits per second
Same-maximum-power Scenario

typical noise

4 signal levels 8 signal levels

 signal noise signal + noise
High
SNR
t t t

signal noise signal + noise

Low
SNR
t t t

Average Signal Power

SNR =
Average Noise Power
Same-BER Scenario
Average power for binary case:
½ A 2 + ½ A2 = A 2
Average power for 4-ary case:
¼ (9 A2 + A2 + A2 + 9 A2 ) = 5 A2
Carrier Modulation of Digital Signals
Information 1 0 1 1 0 1
+1
Amplitude
Shift t
0 T 2T 3T 4T 5T 6
Keying
-1 T
+1
Frequency
Shift t
0 T 2T 3T 4T 5T 6
Keying -1 T
+1
Phase
Shift
0 T 2T 3T 4T 5T 6 t
Keying
-1 T
Spectrum
TDM for Digital
Digital Hierarchy
Multiple Phases (MPSK)

4 “phase” 8 “phases”
2 bits / pulse 3 bits / pulse
2×B bits per second 3×B bits per second
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)

QAM Bk 16 QAM Bk

Ak Ak

4 “levels”or pulses
2 bits / pulse 16 “levels” or pulses
2xB bits per second 4 bits / pulse
4xB bits per second
The Modulation Process of QAM

Modulate cos(ct) and sin (ct) by multiplying them by Ak and Bk respectively:

Ak x Yi(t) = Ak cos(c t)

cos(c t) + Y(t)

Bk x Yq(t) = Bk sin(c t)

sin(c t)
QAM Demodulation

Y(t) x LPF Ak

2cos(c t)
2cos2(ct)+2Bk cos(ct)sin(ct)
= Ak {1 + cos(2ct)}+Bk {0 + sin(2ct)}

x LPF Bk

2sin(c t)
2Bk sin2(ct)+2Ak cos(ct)sin(ct)
= Bk {1 - cos(2ct)}+Ak {0 + sin(2ct)}