EEE 309

Communication Theory
Lecture 2
Dr. Md. Forkan Uddin
Assistant Professor
Dept. of EEE, BUET, Dhaka 10000.

Communication System (Lathi 2.1)

Basic elements:
Input transducer
Transmitter
Channel
Receiver
Output transducer

Input messages:
Voice
Television picture
Email
Message
Data
Image
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Communication System

Input Transducer:
Converts the message to electrical signal (baseband
signal)
Microphone, keyboard, camera etc.
Bandwidth of the base band signal depends on the type
of input message
System design depends on the type of input message
Bandwidth of an information signal is the difference
between the highest and the lowest frequency contained in
that signal
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Communication System

Transmitter:
Process the baseband signal to a suitable form for
transmission over a channel
Consists of several sub-systems: A/D converter, modulator,
encoder etc.
Consists of oscillators, amplifiers, tuned circuits and filters,
modulators, and other circuits
Bandwidth of the transmitted signal depends on the
process in the transmitter
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Communication System

Channel:
Transmission medium that conveys the transmitted
electrical/electromagnetic signal to receiver
Channel types: wired or wireless
Wired: twisted copper wire (telephone, DSL), coaxial
cable (television, internet), optical fiber (backbone)
Wireless: Microwave (Satellite and cellular), RF wave
(Cellular, WiFi, WiMax, LTE)
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Communication System
Channel:
How much information can be sent in 1 s through a
channel?
Capacity depends on the bandwidth of the channel
Copper wire: 1 MHz, Coaxial cable: 100 MHz,
Microwave/RF: GHz, Optical fiber: THz
Attenuation, distortion, and noise are the main
impairments
Bandwidth of a communication channel is a difference
between the highest and the lowest frequency that the
channel will allow to pass through it
Bandwidth of a communication channel must be equal or
greater than the bandwidth of the information.
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Spectrum

Communication System

Receiver:
Process the received signal such that the input signal
can be recovered
Consists of several reversed sub-systems of transmitter:
D/A converter, demodulator, decoder etc.
Consists of oscillators, amplifiers, tuned circuits and
filters, demodulators, and other circuits
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Communication System

Output transducer:
Convert the demodulated signal into output message
(Voice, video, image, data, email etc.)
Headphone, television, computer etc. are the output
transducer

Challenges in Communication (Lathi 1.2)

Channel impairments: attenuation, distortion, noise
Receiver background noise
The magnitude of the channel impairments depends on
the type of channel
Attenuation:
Signal attenuation or degradation exists in all media
Increases with distance
Wireless medium has the highest attenuation exponential decay
Optical fibers have less attenuation, eg, 0.3 dB/km

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Challenges in Communication
Distortion:
Signals distorted during travel through medium (why??)
Wire: frequency dependent attenuation
Optical fiber: Delay differences in different modes,
frequency dependent attenuation
Wireless: Delay differences due to multi-path
propagation, time dependent randomness of particles,
frequency dependent attenuation
Optical fibers suffer from highest dispersion
Wires have the lowest distortion
Inter-symbol interference due to distortion
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Challenges in Communication
Noise:
Channel noise/ External noise
Random, undesirable electronic energy that enters the
communication system via the communicating medium
and interferes with the transmitted message
Interference from nearby channels, human made noise
(automobile ignition radiation, microwave oven), natural
noise (lightning)
External noise can be minimized with proper design
Receiver background noise/Internal noise
Thermal noise and random emission in electronic
devices
One of the main problems in communication
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Capacity of a Transmission Link (Lathi 1.3)

Shannon's limit, C = B log2 (1 + SNR) bits/second
C = capacity, B = channel bandwidth
SNR = signal-to-noise ratio=Received Signal Power/
Noise Power
Capacity increases linearly with bandwidth, but only
logarithmically with signal strength
Shannon's limit tells us what we can achieve it tells us
nothing about how to do it
Two primary resources in communications
Transmitted power (should be green)
Channel bandwidth (very expensive in the
commercial market)

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Calculation of Power and SNR

SNR (dB)= 10 log10(Pr/N)
Pr = received signal power in watt
N=noise power in watt
Unit of power: watt or dBm
dBm is used for low power

Power in dBm = 10 log10 (Power in watt * 1e3)

Power in watt= 10^(Power in dBm/10)*1e-3

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Layering Architecture (Haykin ch 1)

Concept of layering is used in our daily life
Communication through air mail

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Why Layering?
Layer architecture simplifies the
communication network design
It is easy to debug network applications in a
layered architecture network
The communication system management is
easier
Research/work on a layer can be done
independently

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OSI Model
International
standard
organization
(ISO)
established a committee in 1977 to develop an
architecture for computer communication
Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model is the
result of this effort
In 1984, OSI model is approved as reference
model

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OSI Model

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Physical layer

Provides

physical interface for transmission of

information through a medium (wired/wireless)
Covers all - mechanical, electrical, functional and
procedural - aspects for physical communication
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Data Link Layer

Who will transmit, when to transmit,

whom to transmit to
Attempts
to
provide
reliable
communication over the physical layer
interface in one hop distance

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Network Layer

The network layer is responsible for the delivery of

individual packets from the source host to the
destination host
Determine the route for the packets
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Upper Layers
Transport Layer

Controls congestion
Provides transmission reliability between source and destination

Session Layer

The session layer is responsible for dialog

control and synchronization

Presentation Layer

Translate, encrypt and compress data

Application Layer
Allows access to network resource
Make applications into data format

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Interaction among the layers

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