Elements of Digital Communications

System

By
Hisham Alasady, PhD.

Cellular Technologies slide 1 COMP 3054

Objectives:

™ Study the general architecture of digital communications system.

™ Identify the functions of each element of communications system.
™ Discuss different types of communication channels.
™ Discuss the frequency spectrum allocation.

Cellular Technologies slide 2 COMP 3054

 Elements of Digital Communications System

Input Source Channel Digital

A/D
Signal Encoder Encoder Modulator

Channel

Output
Source Channel Digital
Signal
D /A Demodulator
Decoder Decoder

Cellular Technologies slide 3 COMP 3054

A/D

™ Convert analog signal to digital format

™ A / D conversion is achieved by using
the following three operations:
a) Sampling
b) Quantization a) Sampling
c) Encoding

C) Encoding
0 ------- 000
1 ------- 001
2 ------- 010
3 ------- 011
4 ------- 100
5 ------- 101 b) Quantization
6 ------- 110
7 ------- 111

Cellular Technologies slide 4 COMP 3054

Source Encoding or Data Compression

™ The purpose of source encoder is to remove any redundancy in

digital bits to minimize bandwidth requirements.
™ It is also called “Data Compression”
™ Data compression algorithms can be classified into two categories:
ƒ Lossless compression
ƒ Lossy compression
™ Lossless compression algorithms usually exploit statistical redundancy
in such a way as to represent the sender's data more concisely
without error.
™ Lossy data compression or perceptual coding, is possible if some loss
of fidelity is acceptable.

Cellular Technologies slide 5 COMP 3054

Channel Encoding or Forward Error Correction (FEC)

™ The operation of the channel encoder is the inverse of the source

encoder.
™ The main operation is to add redundancy in such a way that the
system will be capable to detect and correct errors.
™ It is also called Forward Error Correction (FEC).
™ The FEC can be classified into three categories:
a) Block Coding
b) Convolutional Coding
c) Turbo Coding

Cellular Technologies slide 6 COMP 3054

Modulator

™ Modulation is the process of converting the transmitted signal from

base band frequency to RF frequency.
™ The modulation techniques can be classified into two categories:
1. Analog Modulation
2. Digital Modulation
™ Analog modulation can be classified into three categories:
1. AM
2. FM
3. PM
™ Digital modulation can be classified into following categories:
1. ASK
2. FSK
3. PSK
4. QAM

Cellular Technologies slide 7 COMP 3054

Frequency Spectrum

™ Generally there are three types of frequencies in communication

systems:
1. Baseband Frequency
2. Intermediate Frequency (IF)
3. Radiation Frequency (RF)
™ Baseband Frequency describes signals and systems whose range
of frequencies is measured from zero to a maximum bandwidth.
™ Intermediate Frequency is a frequency to which a carrier frequency
is shifted as an intermediate step in transmission or reception.
™ Radiation Frequency is the frequency that the transmitted signal
will be radiated at from the antenna.

™ Where c is the speed of the light (3x108 m/sec) and λ is the wave
length
Cellular Technologies slide 8 COMP 3054
Frequency Spectrum

Cellular Technologies slide 9 COMP 3054

Communication Channels

™ Wireline Channels
ƒ Twisted-pair of wire lines (telephone lines)
ƒ Coaxial cable
™ Fiber Optic Channels
™ Wireless Electromagnetic Channels
™ Underwater Acoustic Channels
™ Storage Channels

Cellular Technologies slide 10 COMP 3054