EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1
Introduction

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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

In this course we will …

1. Comprehend the fundamental concepts of

communication systems.

2. Analyze and compare different analog and

digital modulation and demodulation techniques.

3. Analyze and design analog to digital converters and

pulse code modulation system.

4. Have knowledge of current communication systems

(digital telephony, T1 carrier systems, cellular
telephone network, radio and TV broadcast technology)
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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Introduction
1. Communication systems

2. Analogue and digital messages

3. Signal-to-noise ratio SNR, channel bandwidth

and the rate of communication

4. Modulation

5. Randomness, redundancy, and coding

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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Communication

Communication
Source Destination
System

Telecommunication –
• Communication at “distance”
• In the form of electromagnetic signals

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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Figure 1.1 Some examples of communications systems.

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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Modes of Communications

1. Simplex – one direction (TV, radio)

2. Half Duplex – two directions but at different times

(push to talk walkie-talkie)

3. Full Duplex – two directions simultaneously

(telephone)

(i) Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD)

(ii) Time Division Duplexing (TDD)

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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Electrical Communication System - Basic Blocks

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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

1. A source provides a message input (data, voice, picture, …).

2. If the source signal is not electrical (pressure, temperature, …) a

transducer is used to convert it to electrical signal.

3. The electrical signal is sent to a transmitter for modulation.

(for efficient transmission).

4. The modulated signal pass through a channel (wire, optical fiber,

air, ..).

5. A receiver receives the signal from the channel and performs the
demodulation to restore the original signal (message signal or
also called baseband signal).

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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Parameters Effecting the Performance of a

Communication System
• Signal Power – Received signal power depends on the transmitted power
and the power lost in the channel.

• Noise – collection of undesirable signals

• External – interferences from signals transmitted on nearby channels, noise
from faulty contact switches, automobile spark plugs, fluorescent lights,
natural lightning.
• Internal – thermal motion of electrons in conductors, random emissions,
diffusion or recombination of charged carriers in electronic devices.

• Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) - of signal power to noise power

• Along the path signal power reduces, the channel distorts the signal, and
noise accumulates SNR reduces.
• Amplification of received signal does not alter SNR at best.

• Channel Bandwidth – range of frequencies the channel can transmit with

reasonable fidelity.

• Transmission rate (pulses/s, symbols/s, bits/s)-can be increased either by

increasing the SNR or channel bandwidth 10
EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Message Types – Analog, Digital

• Analog
– values vary over a continuous range, assume an infinite number
of possible values
– Examples: temperature or atmospheric pressure of a certain
location, speech waveform
• Digital
– Constructed with a finite number of symbols
– Examples:
• Printed english text: 26 letters, 10 numbers, a space and several
punctuation marks a digital message consisting of 50 symbols
• Human speech: finite vocabulary in a language
• Morse-coded telegraph message: set of two (2) symbols – mark
and space binary message
– M-ary message: A digital message constructed with M symbols
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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Analog-to-Digital (A/D) Conversion

Figure 1.4 Analog-to-digital conversion of a signal.

•Sampling
• Sampling Theorem – If the highest frequency in the signal spectrum
is B (Hertz), the signal can be reconstructed from its samples, taken
at a rate not less than 2B samples/s.
•Quantization – samples are “rounded off” to the nearest Quantized level.12
EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Pulse Code Modulation

Figure 1.5 Example of PCM encoding.

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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Advantages of Digital Signals over Analog Signals

• Noise Immunity

Binary Signal
Ex: Morse Code

Figure 1.3 (a) Transmitted signal. (b) Received distorted signal (without noise).
(c) Received distorted signal (with noise). (d) Regenerated signal (delayed).

• Viability of Regenerative Repeaters

Transmitter Repeater 1 Repeater n Receiver

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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Exercise 1–1: Specify if the following communication

systems are (A)nalog or (D)igital:

a) TV in the 1970s:
b) TV in the 2030s:
c) Fax machines
d) Local area networks (LANs):
e) First–generation cellular phones
f) Second–generation cellular phones
g) Third–generation cellular phones

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EE 370 Communications Engineering I Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

Carrier Modulation (Modulation)

Modulation – the process of

modifying BASEBAND signals
so that to facilitate the transmission
through a channel that would
allow a different frequency range
(PASSBAND).

Increasing the frequency decreases

the wavelength. Size of the
antenna required to radiate the
signal reduces (wireless channel)

Figure 1.6 Modulation: (a) carrier; (b) modulating (base band) signal;

(c) amplitude-modulated wave; (d) frequency-modulated wave.

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