DCN(ITPC-205)

Physical Layer
Digital Transmission and
Analog Transmission
Digital transmission

We shall understand, how we can represent digital data by using digital

signals.
The conversion involves three techniques: line coding, block coding, and
scrambling.
Line coding is always needed; block coding and scrambling may or may
not be needed.

Figure: Digital communication

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Data rate and signal rate

Data rate is number of data elements (bits) transmitted per second

• Units is bits per second (bps)
• Also called bit rate

Signal rate is number of signal elements transmitted per second.

• Units is baud
• Also called pulse rate/modulation rate/ baud rate

Goal of signal communication is increase the data rate while

decreasing the signal rate.
• Increasing data rate increases speed of transmission
• Decreasing signal rate decreases bandwidth requirements

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Examples:

A digital signal has eight levels. How many bits are needed per
level? Calculate the number of bits from the formula?

Assume we need to download text documents at the rate of 100

pages per second. A page is an average of 24 lines with 80
characters in each line. What is the required bit rate of the channel?

We have a channel with a 1-MHz bandwidth. The SNR for this

channel is 63. What are the appropriate bit rate and signal level?

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Line Coding

Line coding is the process of converting digital data into

digital signals.

Types of line coding

• Unipolar line coding
• Polar line coding
• Bipolar line coding
• Multilevel line coding

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Unipolar NRZ & RZ and Polar NRZ

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 NRZ: Signal does not return to zero at the middle of the bit.

NRZ-L: Level of voltage determine the value of bits

NRZ-I: Change in the level of voltage determine the bits

Disadvantages: Sender and receiver clock is not synchronized.

Receiver does not know, when one bit is ending and next bit is starting.

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Polar RZ

In RZ, Signal changes not between bits but during the bit., signal goes to 0 in the
middle of each bit.

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Manchester & Differential Manchester

Manchester and differential Manchester coding are the type of polar line
coding.

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 Manchester: The duration of bit is divided into two halves, the voltage
remain at one level during the first half, move to other level in the second
half.

Differential Manchester: There is always a transition at the middle of the

bit, but bit value are determine at the beginning of the bit.

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Bipolar NRZ and RZ

Bipolar NRZ

Bipolar RZ

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Polar Quaternary

It employs with four distinct symbols

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 Transmission Modes
 Of primary concern when we are considering the transmission
of data from one device to another is the wiring, and of primary
concern when we are considering the wiring is the data stream.

 Do we send 1 bit at a time; or do we group bits into larger

groups and, if so, how?

 The transmission of binary data across a link can be

accomplished in either parallel or serial mode.

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Figure: Data transmission modes

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1 Parallel Transmission

 Line coding is the process of converting digital

data to digital signals.
 We assume that data, in the form of text, numbers,
graphical images, audio, or video, are stored in
computer memory as sequences of bits.
 Line coding converts a sequence of bits to a digital
signal.
 At the sender, digital data are encoded into a
digital signal; at the receiver, the digital data are
recreated by decoding the digital signal.

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Figure: Parallel transmission

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2 Serial Transmission

In serial transmission one bit follows another, so we need only

one communication channel rather than n to transmit data
between two communicating devices.

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Figure: Asynchronous transmission

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 Timing of the signal is unimportant

To alert the receiver to the arrival of new group, therefore an extra bit is
added to the beginning of each byte, named as start bit.

Gap is represented by an idle line rather than by additional stop bits.

Connection of a keyboard to a computer is a natural application for

asynchronous transmission.

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Figure: Synchronous transmission

Direction of flow
Frame Frame Frame

11110111 11111011 11110110 • • •1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 11110011

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 The bit stream is combined into longer frames which may contain multiple
bytes.

It is left to the receiver to separate the bit stream into bytes for decoding
purpose.

We have drawn between in the divisions between bytes. In reality, those

divisions do not exist.

The receiver counts the bits as they arrive and groups them in 8-bits units.

The advantage of synchronous transmission is speed.

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 Figure: Isochronous transmission
 An isochronous data transfer system combines the features of an
asynchronous and synchronous data transfer system.

 Each transmission begins with a start packet. Once the start packet
is transmitted, the data must be delivered with a guaranteed
bandwidth.

 Isochronous data transfer is commonly used for where data must be

delivered within certain time constraints, like streaming video.

 Isochronous systems do not have an error detection mechanism

(acknowledgment of receipt of packet) because if an error were
detected, time constraints would make it impossible to resend the
data.
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Analog Transmission

Digital-to-analog conversion is the process of changing one of the

characteristics of an analog signal based on the information in
digital data.

Figure: Analog Communication

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Types of digital-to-analog conversion

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Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)

Data Element: the smallest piece of information to be exchanged, the bit.

Signal element: the smallest unit of signal.
Carrier Signal: The sending device produces a high frequency signal that
act as a base for the information signal.
ASK is normally implemented using two levels and referred to as binary
amplitude shift keying or on-off keying (OOK).
If digital data are presented as a unipolar NRZ digital signal with a high
voltage of 1 and a low voltage of 0V.
When amplitude of NRZ signal is 1, the amplitude of carrier frequency is
held. When amplitude of NRZ signal is 0, the amplitude of carrier
frequency is zero.
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Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)

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Frequency Shift Keying

We have selected two carrier frequency f1, and f2.

We use first carrier, if the data element is 0, we use the second, data
element is 1.

The input to the oscillator is the unipolar NRZ signal, when the amplitude
of NRZ is zero, the oscillator keeps its regular frequency, when the
amplitude is positive, the frequency is increased.

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Frequency Shift Keying

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Phase Shift Keying

The phase of carrier is varied to represent two or more different signal

elements.
Both peak amplitude and frequency remain constant as the phase changes.
We have two signal elements, one with a phase of 0 degree, and other with a
phase of 180 degree.
We use the same idea, as used for ASK, but with a polar NRZ signal instead
of a unipolar NRZ signal.
1 bit (positive voltage) represented by a phase starting at 0 degree, the 0 bit
(negative voltage) is represented by a phase starting at 180 degree.

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Phase Shift Keying

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Analog to analog conversion

Analog-to-analog conversion is the representation of analog

information by an analog signal.
Why we need to modulate an analog signal, it is already
analog ?
Modulation is needed, if the medium is bandpass in nature or
if only bandpass channel is available.
Example: radio
The analog signal is produced by each station is a low pass
signal, all in the same range.
To be able to listen to different station, the low pass signals
need to be shifted each to a different range.

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Analog to analog conversion

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Amplitude Modulation

The frequency and phase of the carrier remain the same, only the
amplitude changes to follow variations in the information.

The modulating signal is the envelope of the carrier.

The modulation create a bandwidth that is twice the bandwidth of the

modulating signal and cover a range centered on a carrier frequency.

However, the signal components above and below the carrier frequency
carry exactly the same information.

For this reason, some implementations discard one half of the signals and
cut the bandwidth in half.

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Amplitude Modulation

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Frequency Modulation

The frequency of the carrier signal is modulated to follow the changing

voltage level (amplitude) of the modulating signal.

The peak amplitude and phase of the carrier signal remain constant, but as
the amplitude of the information signal changes, the frequency of the
carrier changes.

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Frequency Modulation

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Phase Modulation (PM)

The phase of the carrier signal is modulated to follow the changing voltage
level (amplitude) of the modulating signal.

The peak amplitude and frequency of the carrier signal remain constant,
but as the amplitude of the information signal changes, the phase of the
carrier changes.

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Phase Modulation (PM)

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Analog-to-Digital Conversion

Microphones create analog voice and camera creates analog videos,

which are treated is analog data. To transmit this analog data over
digital signals, we need analog to digital conversion.

To convert analog wave into digital data, we use Pulse Code

Modulation (PCM).

PCM is one of the most commonly used method to convert analog

data into digital form. It involves three steps:
• Sampling
• Quantization
• Encoding

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Sampling

The analog signal is sampled every Ts second, where Ts is called sample

interval or period.

The inverse of sampling interval is called sampling rate or sampling

frequency (fs).

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Quantization

The result of sampling is a series of pulses with amplitude values between

the maximum and minimum amplitudes of the signal.

We assume that original analog signal has amplitudes between Vmin and
Vmax.

We divide the range into L zones, each of height delta

We assigned quantized values of 0 to L-1 to the midpoint of each zone.

We approximate the value of the sample amplitude to the quantized values.

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Delta Modulation (DM)

 PCM is a very complex technique. Other techniques have been

developed to reduce the complexity of PCM.

 The simplest is delta modulation. PCM finds the value of the

signal amplitude for each sample; DM finds the change from
the previous sample.

 Figure shows the process. Note that there are no code words
here; bits are sent one after another.

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Figure: The process of delta modulation

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Figure: Delta modulation components

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Figure: Delta demodulation components

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MULTIPLEXING

Sometimes we need to combine several low bandwidth channels to make

the use of one channel with a larger bandwidth.

Multiplexing is the set of techniques that allows the (simultaneous)

transmission of multiple signals across a single data link.

Dividing a link into channels

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Categories of multiplexing

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Frequency-division multiplexing (FDM)

Analog multiplexing technique

For digital signals, they must be converted to analog signals first
Individual signals modulates different carrier frequencies
Each carrier frequency is separated by a guard band (unused bandwidth) to
prevent signals from overlapping. In addition, choice of carrier frequencies
must ensure that they do not interfere with data being carried
These are then combined into a single composite signal that can be
transported over the data link

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WDM

WDM is conceptually the same as FDM, except that the multiplexing and
demultiplexing involve optical signals transmitted through fiber-optic
channels.

The idea is the same: We are combining different signals of different

frequencies. The difference is that the frequencies are very high.

WDM is designed to use the high-data-rate capability of fiber-optic cable.

The optical fiber data rate is higher than the data rate of metallic
transmission cable.

Using a fiber-optic cable for one single line wastes the available
bandwidth. Multiplexing allows us to combine several lines into one.

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Time Division Multiplexing

Digital Multiplexing technique

Analog data should be digitized prior of TDM

Instead of sharing portion of bandwidth, time is shared

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Spread Spectrum
 In some applications, we have some concerns that outweigh
bandwidth efficiency.

 In wireless applications, stations must be able to share this

medium without interception by an eavesdropper and without
being subject to jamming from a malicious intruder.

 To achieve these goals, spread spectrum techniques add

redundancy.

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Figure: Spread spectrum

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1 FHHS

 Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) is a method of

transmitting radio signals by rapidly switching a carrier
among many frequency channels, using a pseudorandom
sequence known to both transmitter and receiver.

 Each available frequency band is divided into sub-

frequencies. Signals rapidly change ("hop") among these in
a predetermined order.

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Figure: Frequency hopping spread spectrum
(FHSS)

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Figure: Frequency selection in FHSS

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Figure: FHSS cycles

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Figure: Bandwidth sharing

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2 DSSS

 The direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) technique also

expands the bandwidth of the original signal, but the process
is different.

 In DSSS, we replace each data bit with n bits using a

spreading code.

 In other words, each bit is assigned a code of n bits, called

chips, where the chip rate is n times that of the data bit. Next
figure shows the concept of DSSS.

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Figure: DSSS

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Figure: DSSS example

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