Module 4: Digital communication

Principles of digital communication – - Sampling

process-pulse modulation Techniques-
sampling process-
PAM, PWM and PPM concepts –
PCM encoder and decoder
Applications of data communication

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 Advantages of Digital Communication
• Primary advantage is noise immunity – Digital signals
are inherently less susceptible than analog signals to
interference caused by noise, because in analog signals
it is necessary to evaluate precise amplitude, freq or
phase to ascertain its logic condition. In Digital
communication, pulses are evaluated during a precise
time interval and a simple determination is made
whether the pulse is above or below a prescribed
reference level.
• Digital signals are better suited than analog signals for
processing and combining using a technique called
multiplexing

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 Advantages of Digital Communication
• Digital transmission systems are more resistant to
analog systems to additive noise because they use
signal regeneration rather than signal amplification
• Digital signals are simpler to measure and evaluate than
analog signals
• Possibility of a uniform format for different kinds of
baseband signals
• Potential for communication privacy and security
through use of communication

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 Disadvantages of Digital
Communication
• Transmission of digitally encoded analog signals
requires significantly more bandwidth than simply
transmitting the original analog signal
• Analog signals must be converted to digital pulses prior
to transmission and converted back to their original
analog form at the receiver, thus requiring additional
encoding and decoding circuitry.
• Digital transmission systems are incompatible with
older analog transmission systems.

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 Pulse Modulation
• Pulse modulation essentially consists of sampling
analog information signals and then converting those
samples into discrete pulses and transporting the pulses
from a source to a destination over a physical
transmission medium.
• The four predominant methods of pulse modulation
include
• Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
• Pulse Position Modulation (PPM)
• Pulse Amplitude Modulation(PAM)
• Pulse Code Modulation(PCM)

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 Pulse Amplitude Modulation
• In PAM, the amplitude of regularly spaced pulses are
varied in proportion to sample values of a continuous
message signal
• Pulse amplitude modulation is somewhat similar to
natural sampling
• In PAM amplitude of the pulse coincides with the
amplitude of the analog signal

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 PWM & PPM
• PWM is sometimes called pulse duration modulation (PDM)
as the width (active portion of the duty cycle) of a constant
amplitude pulse is varied proportional to the amplitude of the
analog signal at the time the signal is sampled.
• The maximum analog signal amplitude produces the widest
pulse, and the minimum analog signal amplitude produces the
narrowest pulse. Note, however, that all pulses have the same
amplitude.
• .

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 PWM & PPM
• With PPM, the position of a constant-width pulse within a
prescribed time slot is varied according to the amplitude of the
sample of the analog signal. The higher the amplitude of the
sample, the farther to the right the pulse is positioned within
the prescribed time slot. The highest amplitude sample
produces a pulse to the far right, and the lowest amplitude
sample produces a pulse to the far left.
• With PCM, the analog signal is sampled and then converted to
a serial n-bit binary code for transmission. Each code has the
same number of bits and requires the same length of time for
transmission

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Generation of PWM & PPM

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 PPM
• Advantages of PPM
• Due to constant amplitude of PPM pulses, the information is not
obtained in the amplitude. Hence the noise added to the PPM signal
does not distort the information. Thus it has good noise immunity.
• It is possible to reconstruct PPM signal from the noise contaminated
PPM signal. This is also possible in PWM but not possible in PAM.
• Due to constant amplitude of pulses, the transmitted power always
remains constant. It does not change as it is used to in PWM.

• Disadvantages of PPM
• As the position of PPM pulses is varied with reference to a
reference pulse, a transmitter has to send synchronizing pulses to
operate the timing circuits in the receiver. Without them the
demodulation won’t be possible to achieve. Large bandwidth is
required to ensure transmission of undistorted pulses.
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 Pulse Code Modulation
• PCM is not a type of modulation, but rather a form of digitally
coding analog signals.
• PCM is a binary system where a pulse or lack of pulse within a
prescribed time slot represents either a logic 1 or logic 0 condition.
• Pulse code modulation essentially consists of sampling, quantizing
and encoding operations

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PCM Encoder

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 Pulse Code Modulation
• The low pass filter limits the frequency of the analog input
signal before sampling.
• The sample & hold circuit periodically samples the analog
input signal and converts those samples to a multi level PAM
signal.
• The function of a sampling circuit in a PCM transmitter is to
periodically sample the continually changing analog input
voltage and convert those samples to a series of constant
amplitude pulses that can more easily be converted to binary
PCM code. There are two basic techniques used to perform the
sampling– natural sampling and flat top sampling
• The most common method used for sampling in PCM systems
is flat top sampling
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PCM Encoder – Natural Sampling

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PCM Encoder – Flat top Sampling

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 Sampling
• Natural sampling is when tops of the sample pulses
retain their natural shape during the sample interval,
making it difficult for an ADC to convert the sample
to a PCM code.
• The most common method used for sampling voice
signals in PCM systems is flattop sampling, which is
accomplished in a sample-and-hold circuit. With flat-
top sampling, the input voltage is sampled with a
narrow pulse and then held relatively constant until
the next sample is taken.
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Sample & Hold circuit

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 Sample & Hold circuit
• The FET acts as a simple analog switch. When turned on, Q1
provides a low-impedance path to deposit the analog sample
voltage across capacitor C1. Essentially, C1 is the hold circuit.
When Q1 is off, C1 does not have a complete path to discharge
through and, therefore, stores the sampled voltage. The storage
time of the capacitor is called the A/D conversion time.
• It is important that the output impedance of voltage follower
Z1 and the ON resistance of Q1 be as small as possible. This
ensures that the RC charging time constant of the capacitor is
kept very short, allowing the capacitor to charge or discharge
rapidly during the short acquisition time.

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Sampling theorem

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 Quantizing
• An analog signal has a continuous range of amplitudes
and therefore its samples cover a continuous amplitude
range. ie within the finite amplitude range of the signal
we find an infinte number of amplitude levels.
However it is not necessary in fact to transmit the exact
amplitude of the samples. Any human sense as ultimate
receiver can detect only finite intensity differences. So
the original analog signal may be approximated by a
signal constructed of discrete amplitudes.
• If we assign the discrete amplitude levels with
sufficiently close spacing we may make the
approximated signal practically indistinguishable from
original analog signal.
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Quantizing

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 Quantizing
• Quantization is the process of converting an infinite number of
possibilities to a finite number of conditions (or)
-The conversion of the analog sample of the signal into a
discrete form is called the quantizing process
• In Quantizing the peak to peak range of input sample values is
subdivided into a finite set of decision levels or decision
thresholds. The output is assigned a discrete value selected
from a finite set of representation levels
• In a uniform quantizer the separation between the decision
thresholds and the separation between representation levels of
the quantizer has a common value called the step size
• After quantizing a Quantization error is introduced, the value
of which equals the difference between the output and input
values of the quantizer. SCMSJerryEE401 Module4
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Quantizing

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 Encoding
• In combining the processes of sampling and quantizing, the
specification of a continuous baseband signal becomes limited
to a discrete set of values, but not in the form best suited for
transmission over a line, radio path or optical fibre. To exploit
the advantages of sampling and quantizing, we require the use
of an encoding process to translate the discrete set of sample
values to a more appropriate form of signal.
• Any plan for representing each member of this discrete set of
values as a particular arrangement of discrete events is called a
code. One of the discrete events in a code is called a symbol.
• The presence or absence of a pulse is a symbol. A particular
arrangement of symbols used in a code to represent a single
value of the discrete set is called code word or character
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 Encoding
• In a binary code, each symbol may be either of two
distinct values or kinds, such as presence or absence of
a pulse. The two symbols of a binary code are
customarily denoted as 0 & 1. In a ternary code each
symbol may be one of the three distinct values or kinds
and so on for other codes.
• However the maximum advantage over the effects of
noise in a transmission medium is obtained by using a
binary code, because a binary symbol withstands a
relatively high level of noise and is easy to regenrate.

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Encoding

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 Encoding
• There are several formats for the representation of
binary sequences produced by analog to digital
conversion.
• In NRZ Unipolar signal, binary symbol ‘1’ is represented
by a pulse of constant amplitude for the duration of
one bit, and symbol ‘0’ is represented by switching off
the pulse for the same duration.
• In NRZ polar signal, symbol ‘1’ & ‘0’ are represented by
pulses of positive and negative amplitude, respectively,
with each pulse occupying one complete bit duration.

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Encoding-NRZ Unipolar & Polar Signals

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PCM Decoder

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 Regeneration
• The most important feature of PCM systems lies in the
ability to control the effects of distortion and noise
produced by transmitting a PCM wave through a channel.
This capability is accomplished by reconstructing the PCM
wave by means of a chain of regenerative repeaters located
at sufficiently close spacing along the transmission route.
• In a PCM system with ON-OFF signalling, the repeater
makes a decision in each bit interval as to whether or not a
pulse is present. If the decision is ‘yes’, a clean new pulse is
transmitted to next repeater, else a clean base line (pulse is
off) is transmitted. Thus accumulation of distortion and
noise in a repeater span is completely removed.

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Regeneration

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 PCM Decoder

• The digital-to-analog converter (DAC) converts the parallel

PCM codes to multilevel PAM signals.
• Reconstruction filter is basically a lowpass filter that converts
the PAM signals back to its original analog form

• An integrated circuit that performs the PCM encoding and

decoding functions is called a codec (coder/decoder)

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