Lecture 1

Overview

Electronics and Communication Engineering

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 The purpose of a communication system is to transport an

information bearing signal from one point in space and time,
called the source, to another point, the user destination.

 Signal – time varying quantities such as voltage or currents.

 Deterministic & Random
 Periodic & Nonperiodic
 Energy & Power
 Impulse etc.

 System - A set of elements ( functional blocks) that are connected

together in such a manner as to achieve a desired objective.
 Linear & Nonlinear
 Time invariant & Time varying
 Causal & Non Causal etc.

 Information - Information theory ; ECE - 3201

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I/P
signal
Information source
and I/p transducer Transmitter
( Electrical
waveform)

Electrical
Noise communication
channel

O/P
signal
O/P transducer Receiver
( Electrical
waveform)
Communication system

Fig. 1.1: Model of an electrical Communication system

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As a rule the message produced by a source is not

electrical.

An i/p transducer is required for converting the

message to a time varying electrical quantity called
a message signal.

At the destination point another transducer

converts the electrical waveform to the appropriate
message

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 Channel provides the electrical connection between

the information source and the user.

 The channel can have many different forms such as –

 A pair of wires
 An optical fiber
 Microwave radio link etc.

 Regardless of its type, the channel degrades the

transmitted signal in a number of ways as –
• Distortion due to imperfect response of channel
• Undesirable electrical signals (noise) and interference.

Noise and signal distortion are two basic problems

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Signal Processing … to avoid signal distortion

and to minimize the effect of noise at the receiver …

The transmitter and the receiver are carefully designed so

that a faithful reproduction at of the message emitted
by the source is possible.

It may sometimes be possible to couple the i/p

transducer directly to the channel, it is often necessary
to process and modify the i/p signal for efficient
transmission.

Signal processing operations performed by transmitter –

• Amplification
• Filtering
• Modulation

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- Continuous carrier wave modulation

- Pulse modulation

Modulation is used in communication system for-

 Matching signal characteristics to channel characteristics.
 Reducing noise and interference.
 Simultaneously transmitting several signals over a single
channel.
 Overcoming some equipment limitations.

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The main function of the Receiver is to

extract the input message signal from the
degraded version. Receiver performs –

 Demodulation
 Amplification
 Filtering

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3 categories based on the type of modulation scheme

used and the nature of the output of the information
source:

1. Analog communication system designed to transmit

analog information using analog modulation methods.

2. Digital communication system designed for

transmitting digital information using digital
modulation schemes.

3. Hybrid systems that use digital modulation schemes

for transmitting sampled and quantized value of an
analog message signal.

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Other ways of categorizing communication

systems include the classification based on –

 The frequency of the carrier (MW, SW, UHF etc.)

 The nature of the communication channel.

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Discrete b Channel c Analog

a Source Modulator
info
encoder encoder electrical
source d signal

Electrical
communication
Sequence Binary Binary channel
of symbols stream stream
e

f
Source Channel
Destination decoder h decoder g Demodulator
i

Fig 1.2: Functional blocks of a digital Communication system

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Information sources can be classified into 2 categories

based on the nature of their outputs –

1) Analog information sources ( Microphone actuated speech)

2) Discrete Information sources (Teletype or the numerical output of
a computer consists of a sequence of discrete symbols or letters)

An analog information source can be transformed into a discrete

Information source through the process of sampling and quantizing.

Discrete Information sources are characterized by the following

parameters –
 Source alphabet (Source or letters)
 Symbol rate
 Source alphabet probabilities
 probabilistic dependence of symbols in a sequence

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The input to the Source Encoder is a string of symbols occurring

at a rate of rs symbols/sec. It converts the symbols sequence
into a binary sequence of 0’s and 1’s by assigning code words to
the symbols.
• Usually a fixed length binary code word to each symbol.
• It may be variable length code words.
• Output rate of source encoders will be > source
information rate.
• The important parameters of a source coder are-
 Block size
 Code word length
 Average data rate and
 The efficiency of the coder.

At the receiver, the Source decoder converts the binary output of

the channel decoder into a symbol sequence.

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 It provides the electrical connection between the source

and the destination. Due to physical limitations,
Communication channels have only finite bandwidth (B
Hz), and the waveform is distorted because of different
amounts of attenuation and phase shift suffered by
different frequency components of the signal.
- For example, A square pulse is rounded or “spread out” during
the transmission. This type of distortion is called linear distortion.

 The channel may also cause nonlinear distortion through

attenuation that varies with the signal amplitude.

 In addition to the distortion, the signal power also

decreases due to the attenuation of the channel.

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The signal is corrupted by unwanted, random and

unpredictable electrical signals referred to as noise, from
causes external and internal.

External noise includes –

 Interference from signal transmitted on nearby channels.
 Human made noise generated by faulty contact switches.
 Automobile ignition radiation
 Fluorescent lights or natural from lightning as well as electrical storms
and
 Solar and intergalactic radiation.

Internal noise includes –

 Thermal motion of electrons in conductors.
 Random emission.
 Diffusion and recombination of charged carriers in electronic devices.

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One of the ways in which the effect of noise can be

minimized is to increase the signal power. It cant be
increased beyond certain limits because of nonlinear effects
become dominant as the signal amplitude increased. So,
signal to noise power ratio (S/N) can be maintained.

The important parameters of the channel are:

 S/N ratio.
 Usable bandwidth (B).
 Amplitude and phase response and
 The statistical properties of the noise.

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Discrete b Channel c Analog

a Source Modulator
info
encoder encoder electrical
source d signal

Electrical
communication
Sequence Binary Binary channel
of symbols stream stream
e

f
Source Channel
Destination decoder h decoder g Demodulator
i

Fig 1.2: Functional blocks of a digital Communication system

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The modulator accepts a bit stream as its input and

converts it to an electrical waveform suitable for
transmission over the communication channel.

The important parameters of the modulator are the

types of waveform used:

 the duration of the waveforms

The power level
The bandwidth used

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Modulation is a reversible process, and the

extraction of the message from the information
bearing waveform produced by the modulator is
accomplished by demodulator.

The important parameter - type of demodulation.

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Digital channel coding/decoding is a practical method

to provide high transmission reliability and efficiency
that other wise may be achieved only by the use of
signals of longer duration and high power.
Relible – bit error rate
Efficiency – bit/s, cost

The important parameters :

 the method of coding
 Rate or efficiency of coder
 Error control capabilities
 Complexity of the encoder

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Channel decoder recovers the information bearing

bits from the coded binary stream.

The important parameters:

Complexity of the decoder

Time delay involved in the decoder

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Not shown in figure.

equalizer
Clock recovery networks
Scrambler/Unscramblers

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