Chapter 3

Physical Layer

The physical layer is concerned with modulation at a source node and demodulation at the
destination node. As we mentioned before, the maximization of the data rate and minimiza-
tion of the BER are the primary design criteria for the modulation/demodulation subsystems.
However, suboptimal demodulation schemes are sometimes used in the interest of reducing the
implementation complexity or increasing system robustness. The type of modulation and de-
modulation techniques used depends of the characteristics of the channel connecting the source
and the destination.

A channel is characterized by the range of transmitted signal frequencies it allows to pass through
without severe attenuation as well as the type of distortion it induces on the transmitted signal.
A channel which acts as a lowpass filter by allowing frequencies from zero upto a maximum
value to pass through is called a baseband channel. A channel which acts like a bandpass filter
by severely attenuating all frequencies except those present in a band located away from the
zero frequency is called a narrowband or bandpass channel. These two types of channels present
different challenges at the physical layer.

In this chapter, we give a brief description of the purpose and functionality of the various physical
layer subsystems. The goal is to enable the reader to see where the algorithms described in digital
communication courses are used to enable the correct functioning of a communication network.

3.1 Baseband Communication

Baseband channels typically appear when the channel is a conducting wire connecting the source
and destination. For example, the physical channel in Ethernet is a baseband channel consisting
of a twisted pair of wires. On baseband channels, pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) is the
method used to transmit digital information. PAM involves varying the amplitude of a pulse of
finite duration according to digital information to be sent. For example, the bit 1 is mapped to
the signal Ap(t) and the bit 0 is mapped to the signal −Ap(t) where p(t) is a unit-energy pulse of
duration T and A > 0 is the amplitude of the pulse. Then a string of bits {bk : k = 0, 1, . . . , N }
can be mapped to a sequence of pulses
N
X
x(t) = Bk p(t − kT ) (3.1)
k=0

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