Digital Communication

(ECE4058)
Electronics and Communication Engineering
Hanyang University
Haewoon Nam
Lecture 2
ECE4058 Digital Communication

Analog and Digital Signals

Analog
Most of the signals in daily life are analog in nature.
Signals are functions of time, frequency, and space and usually
take values in a continuous range.
The signals can be directly processed in its analog form.
Analog
input
signal

Analog
output
signal

Analog signal
processor

Digital
Signals are represented by discrete variables and discrete time.
Analog
input
signal

A/D
converter

Digital
input
ECE4058 Digital Communication signal

Digital signal
processor

D/A
converter
Digital
output
signal

Analog
output
signal

Comparison of Digital and Analog

Advantages of digital signal processing

Easy (software) and stable processing by microprocessor

Easily stored in memory without deterioration
Lower cost due to VLSI technology (lower costs of memory, etc)
Efficient resource management (e.g. data compression)
More robust data management (e.g. coding)

Limits of digital signal processing

Speed of operation is limited by A/D and D/A converters and
digital signal processors
Analog
input
signal

Digital signal
processor

A/D
converter
Digital
input
signal

ECE4058 Digital Communication

D/A
converter

Analog
output
signal

Digital
output
signal
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Classification of Signals
Continuous-Time versus Discrete-Time signals
Continuous-Valued versus Discrete-Valued signals
Deterministic versus Random signals
Deterministic signal
All past, present, and future values of the signal are known precisely with no
uncertainty.

Random signal
Signals can not be described accurately (noise signals, seismic signal, etc).
Probability and stochastic theory provides the mathematical framework for
the theoretical analysis of random signals.

Periodic versus Aperiodic signals

T
ECE4058 Digital Communication

Classification of Signals
Continuous and discrete signals
Continuous-time and
continuous-valued signal
f(t)

Continuous-time and
discrete-valued signal

Quantization g(t)
t

Discrete-time and Sampling

continuous-valued signal

g(n)

f(n)

n
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Discrete-time and
discrete-valued signal

Sampling Process

What is sampling?

Nyquist sampling theorem

Aliasing problem

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Quantization Process

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Digital Modulations
Pulse modulations

Pulse amplitude modulation (PAM)

Pulse width modulation (PWM)
Pulse position modulation (PPM)
Pulse coded modulation (PCM)
Delta modulation (DM)
Delta sigma modulation

Digital base-band modulations

Amplitude shift keying (ASK)
Frequency shift keying (FSK)
Phase shift keying (PSK)

ECE4058 Digital Communication

Pulse Amplitude Modulation

Pulse-Amplitude Modulation (PAM)

The amplitude of pulses is varied corresponding to the sample value of
a continuous message signal.

Sample-and-Hold Filter : Analysis

The PAM signal is

s (t ) =

m(nT )h(t nT )
s

(5.8)

n =

The h(t) is a standard rectangular pulse

ECE4058 Digital Communication

Pulse Position Modulation

PDM (Pulse-duration modulation) or PWM (Pulse width modulation)

Pulse-width or Pulse-length modulation.
The sample values of the message signal are used to vary the duration
of the individual pulses.
PDM is wasteful of power

PPM (Pulse-position modulation)

The position of a pulse relative to its unmodulated time of occurrence is
varied in accordance with the message signal.

s (t ) =

g (t nT k m(nT ))
s

(5.18)

n =

g (t ) = 0,

t > (Ts / 2) k p m(t ) max

(5.19)

k p m(t ) max < (Ts / 2) (5.20)

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Pulse Position Modulation

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Quantization Process

Amplitude quantization
The process of transforming a sample amplitude of a baseband signal
m(t) into a discrete amplitude v(t) taken from a finite set of possible
levels.

I k : {mk < m mk +1}, k = 1,2,..., L (5.21)

Representation level (or Reconstruction level)
The amplitudes vk , k=1,2,3,,L

Quantum (or step-size)

The spacing between two adjacent representation levels

v = g (m) (5.22)

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Pulse Code Modulation

PCM (Pulse-Code Modulation)

A message signal is represented by a sequence of coded pulses,
which is accomplished by representing the signal in discrete form in
both time and amplitude
The basic operation
Transmitter : sampling, quantization, encoding
Receiver : regeneration, decoding, reconstruction

Operation in the Transmitter

Sampling
The incoming message signal is sampled with a train of rectangular pulses
The reduction of the continuously varying message signal to a limited
number of discrete values per second

Nonuniform Quantization
The step size increases as the separation from the origin of the input-output
amplitude characteristic is increased, the large end-step of the quantizer
can take care of possible excursions of the voice signal into the large
amplitude ranges that occur relatively infrequently.
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Pulse Code Modulation

Compressor
A particular form of compression law : -law

v=

log(1 + m )
(5.23)
log(1 + )

d m log(1 + )
=
(1 + m ) (5.24)
dv

-law is neither strictly linear nor strictly logarithmic

A-law :
Am
1
1 + log A , 0 m A

v =
(5.25)
+
A
m
1
log(
)
1

m 1
,
1 + log A
A

1
1 + log A

,
0
m
d m A
A
=
(5.26)
1
dv
(1 + log A) m , A m 1
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Pulse Code Modulation

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Delta Modulation

DM (Delta Modulation)
An incoming message signal is oversampled to purposely increase the
correlation between adjacent samples of the signal
The difference between the input signal and its approximation is
quantized into only two levels - corresponding to positive and negative
differences

e(nTs ) = m( nTs ) mq (nTs Ts ) (5.27)

eq (nTs ) = sgn[e(nTs )] (5.28)

mq (nTs ) = mq (nTs Ts ) + eq (nTs ) (5.29)

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Delta Modulation

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Delta Modulation

System Details
Comparator
Computes the difference between its two inputs

Quantizer
Consists of a hard limiter with an input-output characteristic that is a scaled
version of the signum function

Accumulator
Operates on the quantizer output so as to produce an approximation to the
message signal.

mq (nTs ) = mq (nTs Ts ) + eq (nTs )

= mq (nTs 2Ts ) + eq (nTs Ts ) + eq (nTs )

e (iT )
q

(5.30)

i =1

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Delta Modulation

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Delta Modulation

Quantization Errors
Slope-overload distortion
The step size is too small for the staircase approximation to follow a steep
segment of the original message signal
The result that the approximation signal falls behind the message signal

Granular noise
When the step size is too large relative to the local slope characteristic of the
original message signal
The staircase
approximation to hunt
around a relatively
flat segment of the
message signal.

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Delta Sigma Modulation

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Announcement and Assignment

Reading assignment
Analog-to-digital conversion (Chapter 7)

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