COMMUNICATION

Communication can be defined as the

exchange of information between two
terminals, using the suitable medium and
with the usage of the right set of
protocols, along with the utilization of the
proper switching facilities.

TECHNICAL GOALS
1. To reduce the overall size
2. To increase the memory capacity
3. To increase the operating speed
4. To reduce the power consumption
5. To covey large amount of information
6. To transmit less amount of signal
7. To consume lesser power
8. To cover larger area

The terminals
The terminals can be either humans or the
corresponding equipments / machines. To connect the
two distant terminals, there is the necessity of a
network, and this network must consist of the
switching facilities, to connect as well as to disconnect
the link for the respective terminals.

TERMINAL
1

SWITCHING
NETWORK

TERMINAL
2

INFORMATION
Information can be of various types such as
voice (300-3400 Hz), sound (20-20,000 Hz),
music, picture, video, text, data etc.
Further, the communicating medium (also called
as channel) can be of various types namely
copper wire, coaxial cable, optical fiber,
waveguide, terrestrial space (microwave link),
extra-terrestrial space (satellite link) etc.
Hence, depending upon the medium being used,
the signal can be electrical (current), optical
(light) or electromagnetic (radio wave).

Networks
In the case of bus, ring and star networks, the
no. of links is equal to the no. of terminals. In the
case of a mesh, the no. of links is equal to
n(n-1) / 2, where "n" is the no. of terminals. For
thousands of nodes, mesh network is impossible
to implement and manage.
Star network structure is adopted for wired
telephone exchanges (PSTN). The bus and ring
structures are used for LAN (Local Area
Network); Ethernet and Token-ring are the
examples respectively.

Communication types
Communication is of 3 types namely - simplex, half-duplex
and full-duplex.
Simplex is one-way (radio/TV broadcast, pager etc).
Half-duplex is conditional two-way (walkie-talkie, HAM
radio, FAX etc).
Full-duplex is complete two-way (telephone, video
conferencing etc).

Thus, the exact type of communication depends on the

particular application.

INFORMATION SWITCHING
CIRCUIT SWITCH
Traffic
Connection
Concept
System
Information
Routing through
Cost

Voice
Dedicated
Space division
Real-time
Analog / digital
Numbering plan
Expensive

PACKET SWITCH
Data
Shared
Time division
Delayed
Only digital
Address space
Economical

SIGNAL
Signal is a single-valued function of time that conveys
information. It can also be defined as the movement of
energy in the medium.
The movement of energy is due to the vibration of the
respective particles. Lower frequency implies bigger
sized particles and higher frequency implies smaller
sized particles. Hence, the higher frequency signals
tend to be narrower, and with LOS propagation.
As the particles are spherical in shape, the signal
remains essentially sinusoidal, or its variations.

THE SPECTRUM

Audio Radio Thermal Video

10 Hz - 100kHz - 1THz
100THz

The radio band:

VLF LF
MF HF VHF
UHF SHF EHF
3k 30k 300k 3M 30M 300M 3G 30G 300G
LW1 LW2 MW SW1 SW2 mW1 mW2 mW3

When size of the oscillating object / particle reduces:

- frequency and speed increase.
- energy content and spreading decrease.

PROPERTIES OF ENERGY
1.

LAW OF CONSERVATION: Energy can neither be

created nor be destroyed, but can only be transformed.

2.

LAW OF MASS ACTION: Energy can be converted into mass,

and mass into energy.

3.

LAW OF REASON: Energy in dynamic form, always tries to

move back to its own source.

4.

LAW OF OBSTRUCTION: Energy, while returning to its

source, moves more through the path of least resistance.

5.

LAW OF CONVERSION: Energy, when proper path is not

available, gets stored, converted and returned, in parts.

NEED FOR MODULATION

1. To match the signal characteristics to the
channel characteristics.
2. To reduce the antenna height.
3. To increase the coverage area.
4. To overcome the effects of noise and
interference.
5. To reduce the equipment size.
6. To overcome the equipment limitations.
7. To enhance the multiplexing scheme.

TYPES OF MODULATION
ANALOG

Amplitude
AM
DSBFC
DSBSC
SSB
VSB

DIGITAL

Angle
FM
PM

Binary
ASK

FSK

PSK

MSK BPSK
GMSK QPSK
FFSK 8-PSK
DPSK
OQPSK

Hybrid
QAM
16-QAM
64-QAM
256-QAM
1024-QAM
4096-QAM

Types of modulation contd

PULSE MODULATION
ANALOG

DIGITAL

PAM
PWM
PPM

PCM
DPCM
ADPCM
DM
ADM

NOISE
External
(channel)
Atmospheric noise
Galactic noise
Industrial noise

Internal
(electronic)
Thermal noise
Shot noise
Flicker noise
Burst noise
Avalanche noise
Transit-time noise

Noise continued
- Most of the atmospheric noise is below VHF range.
- Thermal noise is called as agitation noise, and also as
Johnson noise, after its discoverer.
- Shot noise is generated by the current flowing across a
junction. This noise increases with decrease in current.
- The psd of the thermal noise and shot noise is independent of
frequency; hence both of them come under white noise.
- The psd of the thermal noise and shot noise follows the
Gaussian distribution.

Noise continued
- All the other types of noises are non-white as well as
non-gaussian.
- Flicker noise is also called as 1/f noise, due to its
reduction with increase in frequency.
- This noise results due to the imperfections in the
crystalline structure.
- It is also called as pink noise, as similar psd at
visible frequencies would appear pink in color.

Noise continued
- Burst noise is characterized by discrete high-frequency pulses,
and hence it is also called as popcorn noise.
- This noise reduces with increase in frequency, and its response
is inversely proportional to the square of the frequency; hence it
is further called as 1/f noise.
- Avalanche noise occurs in the reverse breakdown mode of the
PN junction. This type of noise as well as the burst noise occur
in the brown region of the psd.

- Transit-time noise occurs when the transit-time of the charge

carriers approaches the signal period. This type of noise occurs
in the VHF range.

ANALOG MODULATION
Instantaneous voltage of the carrier is given by,
ac = Ac sin(2fct + c)
- With AM, Ac is modulated. The modulated carrier is
represented as: acm = [Ac + am] sin(2fct)
Or, acm = [Ac + Am sin(2fmt)] sin(2fct)
- The modulation index is given by, m = Am/Ac,
with 0 < m < 1. The modulated signal will have
only two sidebands, and the bandwidth of the
modulated signal is 2fm.

Analog modulation - contd

- The total power in an AM wave is given by,
Pt = Pc [1 + sqr(m)/2] = Pc + PSB
- If the carrier is modulated by several sine waves
simultaneously, then the total modulation index
is given by the square root of the sum of the
squares of the individual modulation indices.

Analog modulation - contd

- With FM, fc is modulated. The modulated carrier
is represented as:
acm = Ac sin(2 [fc + fc sin(2fmt)] t)
- The modulation index is given by, m = fc/fm, with
0 < m < . The value of fc depends on am. With
increase in m, there will be increase in the
bandwidth as well, as the modulated signal will
have increased number of sidebands.

Analog modulation contd

- With PM, c is modulated. The modulated carrier
is represented as:
acm = Ac sin(2fct + m sin(2fmt))
- Here, m is the maximum change in phase and
this itself is the modulation index. But the small
changes in phase cannot be transmitted and
detected with accuracy. Hence, PM is not used
for the transmission of speech and music.

Advantages of digital methods

1. Increased immunity to noise and interference.
2. Flexible operation of the system, due to the
multiplexing methods.
3. Common format for the transmission of different
types of message signals.
4. Improved security through the use of encryption.
5. Due to channel coding, errors can be detected
and corrected in the receivers.

Disadvantages
1. Increased transmission bandwidth.
2. Increased system complexity.

First one can be overcome with the

usage of channels such as OFC and
satellite links. The second one is
overcome with the advent of VLSI.

Design goals for the selection of

a DIGITAL modulation scheme

Maximum data-rate
Maximum immunity to interference
Minimum transmit power
Minimum channel bandwidth
Minimum probability of symbol error
Minimum circuit complexity

Comparison of
digital modulation methods
Method
GMSK
BPSK
QPSK
8-PSK
4-QAM
16-QAM
64-QAM
256-QAM
1024-QAM
4096-QAM

Bits per symbol Modulation scheme

1
1
2
3
2
4
6
8
10
12

2F
2P
4P
8P
2Ax2P
2Ax8P / 4Ax4P
4Ax16P / 8Ax8P
8Ax32P / 16Ax16P
16Ax64P / 32Ax32P
32Ax128P / 64Ax64P

No. of phase

Phase-shift

changes

in degrees

2
4
8
16
32
64
128

180
90
45
22.5
11.25
5.625
2.8125

Properties of human speech

1. The speech consists of 56% pause, 22%
repetition and 22% essentials. The speech
can be divided as voiced speech and
unvoiced sounds.
2. The voiced speech is produced by forcing air
through the glottis, by means of which the
vocal cords vibrate.

Properties of human speech contd

3. The unvoiced sounds are produced by a
turbulence, which results due to the forcing of
air through a constriction within the vocal tract.
These are also called as fricatives. e.g.: ss,
sh, phoo, whistle, whisper etc.
4. The voiced sounds are quasi-periodic in
nature, and hence this periodicity permits the
prediction of pitch frequency.

Properties of human speech contd

5. The vocal tract tube resonates at some
particular frequencies, called as formants. A
large coding error can be tolerated near the
formants. (e.g: 500 Hz, 1500 Hz etc.)
6. The human ear does not perceive the noise, if
the noise is 15 dB below the signal level in that
band. This phenomenon, known as noise
masking is a characteristic of human hearing.

SPEECH CODING PROCESS

The advanced coding methods take all the above facts
into consideration. The sounds are modeled as the
response of the vocal tract filter: voiced sounds are
excited with a periodic sequence of impulses, and
unvoiced ones with a white noise sequence. Thus the
bit-rate gets drastically reduced.
The main disadvantage of these voice coding methods
is the processing delay of about 25 ms.

SIGNAL DOMAINS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

TIME DOMAIN

FREQUENCY DOMAIN

Amplitude vs. time

Frequency is linear
For pure waveforms
Via differential equations
Tougher to analyze

Amplitude vs. frequency

Frequency is angular
For complex waveforms
Via algebraic equations
Easier to analyze

Note: A signal cannot be strictly limited both in time and

in frequency. A strictly finite time function will have indefinite
spectrum, and vice versa. e.g.: rect(f) sinc(f)

SPEECH CODING
WAVEFORM CODERS

Time
domain

Frequency
domain

PCM DPCM SBC ATC

DM ADPCM ASBC
ADM
APC
CVSDM

SOURCE CODERS

Time
domain
LPC

Frequency
domain
Vocoder