INTRODUCTION TO

COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

Chapter one
Overview of Communication Systems

Eyasu K.
Outline
Basic principles of communication systems
Communications system diagram
Analog versus digital communication system
Frequency domain analysis of signals
Base band transmission techniques
Basic principles of communication systems
Communication:- is the transfer of
information from one place to another.
This should be done
 as efficiently as possible
 with as much fidelity/reliability as possible
as securely as possible  

Communication System:
Components/subsystems act together to
accomplish information transfer/exchange.
Cont…….
system of communicate useful information
 Cellular phone, Internet, PDA, pagers, …
System
 A combination of circuits and devices which is
assembled to accomplish a desired result or to
provide application
A characteristic of communication system is
the presence of uncertainty, due to
Noise
Unpredictable nature of information itself
Cont……
Elements of communication system
Cont……..
Cont...
 Input Transducer: The message produced by a source
must be converted by a transducer to a form suitable for the
particular type of communication system.
Example: In electrical communications, speech waves are
converted by a microphone to voltage variation.
 Transmitter: The transmitter processes the input signal to
produce a signal suits to the characteristics of the
transmission channel.
Signal processing for transmission almost always involves
modulation and may also include coding. In addition to
modulation, other functions performed by the transmitter are
amplification, filtering and coupling the modulated signal to
the channel.
 Channel: Physical medium over which the
information will be transmitted from the transmitter to
the receiver.
 Wireline channels : a guided medium over which the
information will be transmitted from the transmitter to
the receiver. Example coaxial cable, fiber optic,
waveguide, etc
 Wireless Channels: an unguided medium where
information transmission is via electromagnetic waves
from antenna to antenna.
Example: The atmosphere (or free space),.
The signal undergoes some amount of degradation
from noise, interference and distortion
 Cont.…
Noise is the unwanted and beyond our control waves
that attenuates the transmission of signals.
• Shot noise: the electrons are discrete and are not
moving in a continuous steady flow, so the current is
randomly fluctuating.
• Thermal noise: caused by the rapid and random
motion of electrons within a conductor due to thermal
agitation. (𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑙 𝑁𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 = 𝐾𝐵. 𝑇. 𝐵𝑊)
• Interference: cross-talk - leakage power from other
users
 Receiver: The receiver’s function is to extract the desired
signal from the received signal at the channel output and to
convert it to a form suitable for the output transducer.
Other functions performed by the receiver: amplification
(the received signal may be extremely weak), demodulation
and filtering.
 Output Transducer: Converts the electric signal at its
input into the form desired by the system user.
Example: Loudspeaker, personal computer (PC), tape
recorders
Cont……
 Analog Versus Digital Communication systems

• Analog signals are continuous in both time

and value
• Digital signals are discrete in time and value
• Digital signals are sampled, quantized &
encoded version of continuous time signals
which they represent
 Analog communication

Figure : Block diagram for an analog communication system.

The modulator transforms the message signal into the transmitted signal.
The channel distorts and adds noise to the transmitted signal.
The demodulator extracts an estimate of the message signal from the received
signal arriving from the channel.
 Con……….
 Given the analog nature of both the message signal and the
communication medium, a natural design choice is to map the
analog message signal
 (e.g., an audio signal, translated from the acoustic to electrical
domain using a microphone) to an analog transmitted signal
(e.g., a radio wave carrying the audio signal) that is compatible
with the physical medium over which we wish to communicate
(e.g., broadcasting audio over the air from an FM radio station).

 Early communication systems were all analog: examples

include AM (amplitude modulation) and FM (frequency
modulation) radio, analog television, first generation cellular
phone technology (based on FM), vinyl records, audio cassettes,
and VHS or beta videocassettes
 Digital communication system

 The conceptual basis for digital communication was established

in 1948 by Claude Shannon, when he founded the field of
information theory. There are two main threads to this theory:
 Source coding and compression: Any information-bearing
signal can be represented efficiently, to within a desired
accuracy of reproduction, by a digital signal (i.e., a discrete
time signal taking values from a discrete set), which in its
simplest form is just a sequence of binary digits (zeros or ones),
or bits.
 This is true whether the information source is text, speech,
audio or video. Techniques for performing the mapping from
the original source signal to a bit sequence are generically
termed source coding.
Con……..
Con……

 Source encoder: As already discussed, the source

encoder converts the message signal into a sequence
of information bits. The information bit rate depends
on the nature of the message signal (e.g., speech,
audio, video) and the application requirements.
 Channel encoder: The channel encoder adds
redundancy to the information bits obtained from the
source encoder, in order to facilitate error recovery
after transmission over the channel.
 Modulator: The modulator maps the coded bits at
the output of the channel encoder to a transmitted
signal to be sent over the channel.
 Cont……..

 Channel: The channel distorts and adds noise, and

possibly interference, to the transmitted signal. Much
of our success in developing communication
technologies has resulted from being able to optimize
communication strategies based on accurate
mathematical models for the channel.
 Demodulator: The demodulator processes the signal
received from the channel to produce bit estimates to be
fed to the channel decoder. It typically performs a
number of signal processing tasks, such as
synchronization of phase, frequency and timing, and
compensating for distortions induced by the channel.
 Channel decoder: The channel decoder processes the
imperfect bit estimates provided by the demodulator, and
exploits the controlled redundancy introduced by the
channel encoder to estimate the information bits
 Source decoder: The source decoder processes the
estimated information bits at the output of the channel
decoder to obtain an estimate of the message. The message
format may or may not be the same as that of the
original message input to the source encoder:
 for example, the source encoder may translate speech to
text before encoding into bits, and the source decoder may
output a text message to the end user.
digital communication 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.
 Radio (Wireless) Communication Channels
• Unguided electromagnetic wave, radiated by
the Tx antenna, is a carrier of the signal
• Strong signal attenuation
 Up to 200 dB
 Hence, high Tx power is required
• Antennas are required
 Size of antenna: Comparable with wavelength
Propagate Characteristics of Radio Channels
• Ground Wave
– Low MHz
– Radio waves travel near Earth's surface without being
reflected or refracted by the atmosphere—the dominant
propagation mode at lower frequencies,
– Waves guided between earth and ionosphere
– Distance of communication varies based on wavelength
– AM Radio (1 MHz) – propagates < 100 miles in day but
longer at night

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• Sky Wave
– Low 30 MHz
– Sky waves are reflections
from the ionosphere
– Signals reflect from various
layers of ionosphere
– Changes based on time,
frequency, sun spots
– Signals travel around the
world

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• Line of Sight
– Above 30 MHz
– In which radio waves travel in a straight line, the
dominant mode at higher frequencies
– Need little or no obstruction
– In GHz range –> rain issues
– Used for Satellite and local communications

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 Electromagnetic Spectrum
• Government regulations make specific ranges
of the electromagnetic spectrum available for
communication.
• A license is required to operate transmission
equipment in some parts of the spectrum.
• Some parts are unlicensed
Industrial, Scientific, and Medical frequency
bands
• Tx output power 1 watt
Electromagnetic spectrum

• ELF : 0 – 3 kHz->Submarine communications

• VLF : 3 – 30 kHz->Submarine communications, Time Signals, Navigation
• LF : 30 – 300 kHz->Navigation, Time Signals
• MF: 300 kHz – 3MHz->Maritime Voice/Data, AM Broadcasting,
Aeronautical Communications
• HF: 3 – 30 MHz->“Shortwave” Broadcasting. Amateur, Point to Point
data, Maritime Voice/Data, Aeronautical, Communications
• VHF : 30 – 300 MHz->Police, Fire, Public Service mobile, Amateur
Satellite, Analog TV, FM Broadcast
• UHF : 300 – 3,000 MHz(3 GHz)-> Police, Fire, Public Service
communications, Satellite, Analog and HD TV, Telemetry (flight test).
Radar. Microwave links (telephone/data),Wi-Fi
• SHF : 3 – 30 GHz-> Radar, Satellite, Telemetry, Microwave links
• EHF : 30 – 300 GHz-> Radar, Satellite, Microwave links
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 Parameters of communication media

• Symbol: amount of information transmitted per second

• Period(Ts): the time required to transmit one symbol
• Bit rate(R): the amount of bits transmitted per second
• Symbol rate(Rs): is the amount of symbol changes
made to the transmission medium per second.
Measured in baud(symbol/second)
• Frequency (Fs): the frequency at which the system
operates
• Bit error rate(BER): is the number of error bits divided
by the total amount of transferred bits

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 Goal of Communications Engineer
Primary Communication Resources
• Transmitted power
• Channel bandwidth
To design transmitters and receivers that are
• Cost efficient
• Bandwidth efficient
Maximum information transfer (message at sink is
a faithful representation of the source message)
• Power efficient (uses as little power as necessary
Thank You!
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