Introduction To Communication System

Channel Capacity and Data Rate

 Channel bandwidth limits the bandwidth of signals that can
successfully pass through, whereas the input SNR of the
receiver determines the recoverability of the transmitted
signals.
 Higher SNR means that the transmitted signal pulse can
use more signal levels, thereby carrying more bits with
each pulse transmission.
 Higher bandwidth B also means that one can transmit more
pulses (faster variation) over the channel. Hence, SNR and
bandwidth B can both affect the underlying channel
“throughput.” The peak throughput that can be reliably
carried by a channel is defined as the channel capacity.
 One of the most commonly encountered channels is known
as the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. The
AWGN channel model assumes no channel distortions
except for the additive white Gaussian noise and its finite
bandwidth B.
 This ideal model characterizes application cases with
distorion-less channels and provides a performance upper
bound for more general linearly distortive channels. The
band-limited AWGN channel capacity was dramatically
highlighted by the equation owing to C. E. Shannon.
 Here the channel capacity C is the upper bound on the rate
of information transmission per second. In other words, C
is the maximum number of bits that can be transmitted per
second with arbitrarily small probability of error; that is,
the transmission is as accurate as one desires.
 Conversely, it is also impossible to transmit at a rate higher
than C without incurring a large number of errors.
Shannon’s equation clearly shows the limit on the rate of
communication jointly imposed by B and SNR.
 As a practical example of trading SNR for bandwidth B,
consider the scenario in which we meet a soft-spoken man
who speaks a little bit too fast for us to fully understand.
This means that as listeners, our bandwidth B is too low
and therefore, the capacity C is not high enough to
accommodate the rapidly spoken sentences.
 However, if the man can speak louder (increasing power
and hence the SNR), we are likely to understand him much
better without changing anything else. This example
illustrates the concept of resource exchange between SNR
and B. Note, however, that this is not a one-to-one trade.
Doubling the speaker volume allows the speaker to talk a
little faster, but not twice as fast.
 In conclusion, Shannon’s capacity equation underscores
qualitatively the basic role played by B and SNR in limiting
the performance of a communication system.
 These two parameters then represent the ultimate limitation
on the rate of communication.
 The possibility of resource exchange between these two
basic parameters is also demonstrated by the Shannon
equation
Example
 We can calculate the theoretical highest bit rate of a regular
telephone line. A telephone line normally has a bandwidth
of 3000. The signal-to-noise ratio is usually 3162. For this
channel the capacity is calculated as

This means that the highest bit rate for a

telephone line is 34.860 kbps. If we want to send
data faster than this, we can either increase the
bandwidth of the line or improve the signal-to-
noise ratio.
Example
 The signal-to-noise ratio is often given in decibels. Assume
that SNRdB = 36 and the channel bandwidth is 2 MHz. The
theoretical channel capacity can be calculated as
Example
 We have a channel with a 1-MHz bandwidth. The SNR for
this channel is 63. What are the appropriate bit rate and
signal level?

Solution
 First, we use the Shannon formula to find the upper limit.
MODULATION AND DETECTION
 Analog signals generated by the message sources or digital
signals generated through A/D conversion of analog signals
are often referred to as baseband signals because they
typically are low pass in nature.
 Baseband signals may be directly transmitted over a
suitable channel (e.g., telephone, cable). However,
depending on the channel and signal frequency domain
characteristics, baseband signals produced by various
information sources are not always suitable for direct
transmission over an available channel.
 When signal and channel frequency bands do not match,
channels cannot be moved.
 Hence, messages must be moved to match the right channel
frequency bandwidth. Message signals must therefore be
further modified to facilitate transmission.
 In this conversion process, known as modulation, the
baseband signal is used to control (i.e., modulate) some
parameter of a radio carrier signal.
 A carrier is a sinusoid of high frequency.
 Through modulation, one of the carrier sinusoidal
parameters—such as amplitude, frequency, or phase—is
varied in proportion to the baseband signal m(t).
 Respectively, we have amplitude modulation (AM),
frequency modulation (FM), or phase modulation (PM).
 Figure 1.5 shows a baseband signal m(t) and the
corresponding AM and FM waveforms. In AM, the carrier
amplitude varies linearly with m(t); and in FM, the carrier
frequency varies linearly with m(t).
 To reconstruct the baseband signal at the receiver, the
modulated signal must pass through a reverse process
called demodulation
 As mentioned earlier, modulation is used to facilitate
transmission. Some of the important reasons for
modulation are given next.
 Ease of Emission/Transmission
 For efficiently emitting electromagnetic energy, the
transmit antenna should be on the order of a fraction or
more of the wavelength of the driving signal.
 For many baseband signals, the wavelengths are too large
for reasonable antenna dimensions. For example, the power
in a speech signal is concentrated at frequencies in the
range of 100 to 3000 Hz. The corresponding wavelength is
100 to 3000 km. This long wavelength would necessitate an
impractically large antenna.
 In this respect, modulation is like letting the baseband
signal hitch a ride on a high-frequency sinusoid (carrier).
 The carrier and the baseband signal may also be compared
to a stone and a piece of paper.
 If we wish to throw a piece of paper, it cannot go too far by
itself. But if it is wrapped around a stone (a carrier), it can
be thrown over a longer distance.
 Simultaneous Transmission of Multiple Signals—
Multiplexing
 Modulation also allows multiple signals to be transmitted at
the same time in the same geographical area without direct
mutual interference.
 This case in point is simply demonstrated by considering
the output of multiple television stations carried by the
same cable (or over the air) to viewers’ television sets.
Without modulation, multiple video signals will all be
interfering with one another because all baseband video
signals effectively have the same bandwidth.
 Thus, cable TV or broadcast TV without modulation would
be limited to one station at a time in a given location—a
highly wasteful protocol because the channel bandwidth is
many times larger than that of the signal.
 One way to solve this problem is to use modulation. We
can use various TV stations to modulate different carrier
frequencies, thus translating each signal to a different
frequency band.
 If the various carriers are chosen sufficiently far apart in
frequency, the spectra of the modulated signals (known as
TV channels) will not overlap and thus will not interfere
with each other.
 At the receiver (TV set), a tunable band pass filter can
select the desired station or TV channel for viewing.
 This method of transmitting several signals simultaneously,
over non overlapping frequency bands, is known as
frequency division multiplexing (FDM).
 A similar approach is also used in AM and FM radio
broadcasting. Here the bandwidth of the channel is shared
by various signals without any overlapping.
 Another method of multiplexing several signals is known
as time division multiplexing (TDM). This method is
suitable when a signal is in the form of a pulse train (as in
PCM).
 When the pulses are made narrower, the space left between
pulses of one user signal can be used for pulses from other
signals.
 Thus, in effect, the transmission time is shared among a
number of signals by interweaving the pulse trains of
various signals in a specified order.
 At the receiver, the pulse trains corresponding to various
signals are separated .
 Demodulation
 Once multiple modulated signals have arrived at the
receiver, the desired signal must be detected and recovered
into its original baseband form.
 Note that because of FDM, the first stage of a demodulator
typically requires a tunable band-pass filter so that the
receiver can select the modulated signal at a predetermined
frequency band specified by the transmission station or
channel.
 Once a particular modulated signal has been isolated, the
demodulator will then convert the modulated signal back
into the baseband signal voltage.
 For the three basic modulation schemes of AM, FM, and
PM, the corresponding demodulators must be designed
such that the detector output voltage varies in proportion to
the input modulated signal’s amplitude, frequency, and
phase, respectively.
 Once circuits with such response characteristics have been
implemented, the demodulators can down convert the
modulated radio frequency (RF) signals back into the
baseband signals that represent the original source
message, be it audio, video, or data.
DIGITAL SOURCE CODING AND ERROR
CORRECTION CODING

 As stated earlier, SNR and bandwidth are two factors that

determine the performance of a given communication
scheme. Unlike analog communication systems, digital
systems often adopt aggressive measures to lower the
source data rate and to fight against channel noise.
 In particular, source encoding is applied to generate the
fewest bits possible for a given message without sacrificing
its accuracy.
 On the other hand, to combat errors that arise from noise
and interferences, redundancy needs to be introduced
systematically at the transmitter such that the receivers can
rely on the redundancy to correct errors caused by channel
distortion and noise.
 This process is known as error correction coding by the
transmitter and decoding by the receiver.
Randomness, Redundancy, and Source
Coding
 To understand source coding, it is important to first discuss
the role of randomness in communications.
 As noted earlier, channel noise is a major factor limiting
communication performance because it is random and
cannot be easily removed or predicted. On the other hand,
randomness is also closely associated with the message
signals in communications.
 If a source had no unpredictability, like a friend who
always wants to repeat the same story on “how I was
abducted by an alien,” then the information would be
known beforehand and the message would contain no
information.
 In short, a predictable signal is not random and is fully
redundant. Thus, a message contains information only if it
is unpredictable. Higher predictability means higher
redundancy and, consequently, less information.
Conversely, more unpredictable or less likely random
signals contain more information.
 Source coding reduces redundancy based on the
predictability of the message source. The objective of
source coding is to use codes that are as short as possible to
represent the source signal. Shorter codes are more efficient
because they require less time to transmit at a given data
rate.
 Hence, source coding should remove signal redundancy
while encoding and transmitting the unpredictable, random
part of the signal.
 The more predictable messages contain more redundancy
and require shorter codes, while less likely messages
contain more information and should be encoded with
longer codes.
 By assigning more frequent messages with shorter source
codes and less frequent messages with longer source codes,
one obtains more efficient source coding.
 Consider the Morse code, for example. In this code, various
combinations of dashes and dots (code words) are assigned
to each letter in the alphabet.
 To minimize transmission time, shorter code words are
assigned to more frequently occurring (more probable)
letters (such as e, t, and a) and longer code words are
assigned to lower usage (less probable) letters (such as x, q,
and z).
Error Correction Coding
 Error correction coding also plays an important role in
communication systems. While source coding removes
redundancy, error correction codes add redundancy. The
systematic introduction of redundancy supports reliable
communication.
 Because of redundancy, if certain bits are in error due to
noise or interference, other related bits may help them
recover, allowing us to decode a message accurately
despite errors in the received signal.
Thanks……………………