DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS

(ADVANCED LEVEL)
Chapter 1:
An Introduction to Digital Communications
Lectured by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Thuong Le-Tien
National Distinguished Lecturer
Cell: 0903 787 989
Email: thuongle@hcmut.edu.vn

August, 2014
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Historical Background
*Information theory and coding:
Shannons 1948 paper was followed by three
ground-breaking advances in coding theory
1. Development of the first nontrivial error correcting codes
by Golay 1949 and Hamming 1950
1. Development of Turbo Codes by Berou, Glavieux and
Thitimjshima 1993 provide near-optimum error-correcting
coding and decoding performance in additive white
Gaussian noise (AWGN)
1. Rediscovery of Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes
(by first original by Gallager 1962) by Tanner 1981
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The Internet::
Advanced Research Project Agency Network (ARPANET) 1971 by
US Department of Defence
* The pioneering work in packet switching was done on the ARPANET
1985: ARPANET renamed the Internet

Wireless Communications
1864: James Clerk Maxwell formulated the elctromagnetic theory

of light and predicted the existence of radio waves; then set four
equations connect electric and magnetic quantities
1884 Henrich Hertz demonstrated the existence of radio waves
experimentally
Dec 12, 1901, Guglielmo Marconi received a radio signal at Signal
Hill in Newfoundland from Cornwall England (2100miles away)
1906, Fessenden, a self-educated academic, made history by
conducting the first radio broadcast, transmitting music and voice (AM)
* 1988, the first digital cellular system in Europe GSM and AMPS in US
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There are two basic models of communications

* Broadcasting
* Point-to-point

Transmitter
*Modulation
*Coding

Channel
*Attenuation
*Noise
*Distortion
*Interference
*Fading

Receiver
*Detection (Demod+Decod)
*Filtering (Equalization)

MULTIPLE ACCESS TECHNIQUE

(a) FDMA

(b) TDMA)

(b) CDMA (freq.-hop)

In multiple access, same channel is used to transmit multiple information

channels transported by multiple messages to different users
TDMA (Time division multiple access), users occupy different time slot
FDMA (Freq. division multiple access), users occupy different freq. bands
CDMA (Code division multiple access), users occupy the same frequency
band but modulate their messages with different codes
WDMA (Wavelength division multiple access): another category of
FDMA but used in optical communications
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SDMA (Space division multiple access)

Communication Networks
Operated by Open
System Interconnection
(OSI)
composed of 7 layers

7.

6.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

Digital Communications
There are 3 layers of the OSI model where it
can effect the design of DCS
Physical Layer: communications between nodes
through MODEM
Data-link Layer: Error Detection and Correction; a
portion of the data link layer, called the Medium
access control (MAC) sub-layer, allowing frames to
be send over the shared transmission channel
Network Layer: Routing, quality of services
and Flow Control
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General Block Diagram of a DCS

 Important features of a DCS:

Transmitter sends a waveform from a finite
set of possible waveforms during a limited
time
Channel distorts, attenuates the transmitted
signal and adds noise, interferences to it.
Receiver decides which waveform was
transmitted from the noisy received signal
Probability of erroneous decision (or BER) is
an important measure for the system
performance
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Digital versus analog

Advantages of digital communications:
Regenerator at receiver
Original
pulse

Regenerated
pulse
Propagation distance

Different kinds of digital signal are treated

identically.
Voice
Data

Media

A bit is a bit!
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Shannons information capacity theorem

Bit error rate (BER)
The information capacity of channel or the
maximum rate of transmission without
errors:
C=B log2(1+SNR)=3.32B log10(1+SNR) b/s
The efficiency of Dig-Com uses =R/C with
R is the sampling rate.
C provide the approach of trade-off
between B and received SNR
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Classification of signals
Deterministic and random signals
Deterministic signal: No uncertainty with
respect to the signal value at any time.
Random signal: Some degree of uncertainty
in signal values before it actually occurs.
Thermal noise in electronic circuits due to
the random movement of electrons
Reflection of radio waves from different
layers of ionosphere
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(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)

Transmitted signal
Effects of distortion
Effects of interference
Effects of noise

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 Periodic and non-periodic signals

A periodic signal

A non-periodic signal

Analog and discrete signals

A discrete signal
Analog signals

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Energy and power signals

A signal is an energy signal if, and only if, it has

nonzero but finite energy for all time:

A signal is a power signal if, and only if, it has

finite but nonzero power for all time:

General rule: Periodic and random signals are power

signals. Signals that are both deterministic and nonperiodic are energy signals.
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Random process
A random process is a collection of time functions, or
signals, corresponding to various outcomes of a
random experiment. For each outcome, there exists a
deterministic function, which is called a sample function
or a realization.
Real number

Random
variables

Sample functions
or realizations
(deterministic
function)
time (t)
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 Strictly stationary: If none of the statistics of the random process

are affected by a shift in the time origin.
Wide sense stationary (WSS): If the mean and autocorrelation
function do not change with a shift in the origin time.
Cyclostationary: If the mean and autocorrelation function are
periodic in time.
Ergodic process: A random process is ergodic in mean and
autocorrelation, if
and
, respectively.

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Autocorrelation
Autocorrelation of an energy signal
Autocorrelation of a power signal

For a periodic signal:

Autocorrelation of a random signal

For a WSS process:
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Spectral density
Energy signals:
Energy spectral density (ESD):

Power signals:
Power spectral density (PSD):

Random process:
Power spectral density (PSD):
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Properties of an autocorrelation function

For real-valued (and WSS in case of

random signals):
1.
2.
3.
4.

Autocorrelation and spectral density form

a Fourier transform pair.
Autocorrelation is symmetric around zero.
Its maximum value occurs at the origin.
Its value at the origin is equal to the
average power or energy.
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Noise in communication systems

Thermal noise is described by a zero-mean Gaussian

random process, n(t).
Its PSD is flat, hence, it is called white noise.
[w/Hz]

Power spectral
density

Autocorrelation
function
Probability density function
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Signal transmission through

linear systems
Input

Output
Linear system

Deterministic signals:
Random signals:

Ideal distortionless transmission:

All the frequency components of the signal not only arrive
with an identical time delay, but also are amplified or
attenuated equally.
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Bandwidth of signal
Baseband versus bandpass:
Baseband
signal

Bandpass
signal
Local oscillator

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Different definition of bandwidth:

a) Half-power bandwidth
b) Noise equivalent bandwidth
c) Null-to-null bandwidth

d) Fractional power containment bandwidth

e) Bounded power spectral density
f) Absolute bandwidth

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)50dB
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Mediums and Electromagnetic Spectra

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Modeling Transmission Channels

s( t )

Channel
Channeltransfer
transferfunction
function
/linear/nonlinear
/linear/nonlinear

+
n(t )

channel

r (t ) s (t ) c (t ) n(t )
(AWGN channel (usually transfer
function is linear) and n(t) is Gaussian,
white noise)

Channels as radio path (wireless cellular channel,

microwave link, satellite link); sounds in underwater link
or in wireline channels as coaxial cable, fiber optic cable
or wave guides.
Most common channels are linear Additive, White
Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channels or linear fading
channels
Note that the AWGN channel output is convolution of
channel impulse response c(t) and channel input signal
s(t) and has the noise term n(t) as additive component:
r (t ) s c(t ) n(t ) s(t )c( t )dt n(t )
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u

Linear and Nonlinear Channels

v o (t )

v o (t )

v i (t )

v i (t )

Linear channel

Nonlinear channel

v 0 (t ) Kv i (t ) M
Linear channels:
generate never new frequency components
characterized by transfer function
Non-linear systems:
characterized by transfer characteristics
Note: Often non-linearity in transmission is generated by transmitter or
receiver, not by the channel itself
Non-linear systems can generate new frequency components, example:
N

v o (t ) ao auv iu (t )
u 1

produces

with

v i (t ) sin( t ), N 2

v o (t ) a0 a1 sin( t ) a2 / 2(1 cos(2 t ))

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Time-variable
Channel

Most information channels are time-variable (fading) channels:

cable, microwave link, cellular channel. Received signal is

r (t ) n(t ) s(t ) c( ; t )

In frequency domain, (in differential time instant) there exists a

frequency response C( 1; f ) C1(f ) and for this instance we may
write

R1(f ) N (f ) S(f )C1(f )

Channel variations / transmission errors compensated at the

receiver:
equalization flattens frequency response (tapped delay line,
decision feedback equalizer (DFE))
equalization assisted by channel estimation
channel errors can be compensated by channel coding (block
and convolutional codes)
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Interleaving
In fading channels, received data can experience burst
errors that destroy large number of consecutive bits.
This is harmful in channel coding
Interleaving distributes burst errors along data stream
received
A problem of interleaving is
power
introduced extra delay
Example below shows block
time
interleaving:
Reception after
fading channel

Received interleaved data: 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1

Block deinterleaving :
Recovered data:

1000111
0101110
0011001
100010001011110110101

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Unmodulated and
Modulated Sinusoidals
The unmodulated sinusoidal wave is
parameterized by constant amplitude,
frequency and phase

unmodulated sinusoidal

some digital carriers [5]

In unmodulated sinusoidal all parameters known, conveys no information

Mathematically and experimentally convenient formulation whose
parameterization by variables enables presenting all carrier wave
modulation formats by

x(t ) A(t ) cos c t (t )

Amplitude modulation
(AM)...,
Amplitude Shift Keying
(ASK)...

Carrier-term

Frequency modulation
(FM),
Frequency/Phase Shift
Keying (FSK,PSK)...
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Coding

Channel coding is done ...

For detection and/or correction of errors produced by the
channel (as block and convolutional coding) by
noise
interference
distortion
linear
nonlinear
To alleviate synchronization problems (as Manchester coding)
To alleviate detection problems (as differential coding)
To enable secrecy and security (as scrambling or ciphering)
Channel coding principles:
ARQ (Automatic Repeat Request) as go-back-N ARQ
FEC (Forward Error Correction) as block & convolutional coding
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Coding is classified to two flavors

source coding: makes transmitted bits equal probable maximizes channel capacity
channel coding: protects message & adapts it to channel
Channel coding means adding extra bits for message for error
detection and/or correction
In systematic coding message bits remain the same in coded
word:
Error detection
/correction bits

Message bits

In coded systems soft decision can be used that calculates the

distance of the received code word to the allowed code words for
instance by using a least-square metric
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