Lecture 1

Introduction to Telecommunication Systems

The objective of any telecommunication system is to facilitate
communication between people—who may be sitting in adjacent or located in
different parts of the world. The information people may like to exchange can be in
different forms—text, graphics, voice, or video.

1.1 BASIC TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEM

A very simple telecom system is shown in Figure 1.1. At the transmitting
end, there will be a source that generates the data and a transducer that converts the
data into an electrical signal. The signal is sent over a transmission medium and, at
the receiving end, the transducer again converts the electrical signal into data and is
given to the destination (sink). For example, if two people want to talk to each
other using this system, the transducer is the microphone that converts the sound
waves into equivalent electrical signals. At the receiving end, the speakers convert
the electrical signal into acoustic waves.

Figure 1.1 Basic Telecommunication System

Figure 1.2 shows the parts of a communication system more clearly. The block
diagram consists of the following parts:

Information Source Channel Modulator

Source Encoder encoder
Modulating Modulated
signal signal
Channel

Demodulated
signal
Information Source Channel Demodulator
sink decoder decoder

Figure 1.1 Block Diagram of Communication System

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1. Information source: The information source produces the symbols. If the
information source is, for example, a microphone, the signal is in analog
form. If the source is a computer, the signal is in digital form (a set of
symbols).
2. Source encoder: The source encoder converts the signal produced by the
information source into a data stream. If the input signal is analog, it can be
converted into digital form using an analog-to-digital converter. Source
encoding is done to reduce the redundancy in the signal.

Source coding techniques can be divided into lossless encoding

techniques and lossy encoding techniques. In lossy encoding techniques,
some information is lost. When we compress our computer files using a
compression technique (for instance, WinZip), there is no loss of
information. Such coding techniques are called lossless coding
techniques. When an image is converted into JPEG format, the coding is
lossy coding because some information is lost. Most of the techniques
used for voice, image, and video coding are lossy coding techniques.

3. Channel encoder: If we have to decode the information correctly, even if

errors are introduced in the medium, we need to put some additional bits in
the source-encoded data so that the additional information can be used to
detect and correct the errors. This process of adding bits is done by the
channel encoder. Shannon's channel coding theorem tells us how to achieve
this.

In channel encoding, redundancy is introduced so that at the

receiving end, the redundant bits can be used for error detection or
error correction.

4. Modulation: Modulation is a process of transforming the signal so that the

signal can be transmitted through the medium. We will discuss the details of
modulation in a later chapter.
5. Demodulator: The demodulator performs the inverse operation of the
modulator.
6. Channel decoder: The channel decoder analyzes the received bit stream and
detects and corrects the errors, if any, using the additional data introduced by
the channel encoder.
7. Source decoder: The source decoder converts the bit stream into the actual
information. If analog-to-digital conversion is done at the source encoder,
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 digital-to-analog conversion is done at the source decoder. If the symbols are
coded into 1s and 0s at the source encoder, the bit stream is converted back
to the symbols by the source decoder.
8. Information sink: The information sink absorbs the information.

1.2 TYPES OF COMMUNICATION:

1. Point-to-point communication: In this type, communication takes place
between two end points. For instance, in the case of voice communication
using telephones, there is one calling party and one called party. Hence the
communication is point-to-point.
2. Point-to-multipoint communication: In this type of communication, there
is one sender and multiple recipients. For example, in voice conferencing,
one person will be talking but many others can listen. The message from the
sender has to be multicast to many others.
3. Broadcasting: In a broadcasting system, there is a central location from
which information is sent to many recipients, as in the case of audio or video
broadcasting. In a broadcasting system, the listeners are passive, and there is
no reverse communication path.
4. Simplex communication: In simplex communication, communication is
possible only in one direction. There is one sender and one receiver; the
sender and receiver cannot change roles.
5. Half-duplex communication: Half-duplex communication is possible in
both directions between two entities, but one at a time. A walkie-talkie uses
this approach. The person who wants to talk presses a talk button on his
handset to start talking, and the other person's handset will be in receive
mode. When the sender finishes, he terminates it with an over message. The
other person can press the talk button and start talking. These types of
systems require limited channel bandwidth, so they are low cost systems.
6. Full-duplex communication: In a full-duplex communication system, the
two parties—the caller and the called—can communicate simultaneously, as
in a telephone system. However, note that the communication system allows
simultaneous transmission of data, but when two persons talk
simultaneously, there is no effective communication! The ability of the
communication system to transport data in both directions defines the system
as full-duplex.

1.3 Analog versus digital Transmission:

Data can be analog or digital. The term analog data refers to information that is
continuous; digital data refers to information that has discrete states

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The advantages of digital systems are:

1. In a digital communication system, 1s and 0s are transmitted as voltage

pulses. So, even if the pulse is distorted due to noise, it is not very difficult to
detect the pulses at the receiving end. Hence, digital communication is much
more immune to noise as compared to analog communication.
2. Less costly implementation because of the advances in digital logic chips.
3. Ease of combining various types of signals (voice, video, etc.).
4. Ease of developing secure communication systems.

1.4 Special Types of Functions:

The bandwidth, B of a signal is defined as the difference (in Hz) between two
nominal frequencies fmax and fmin.
A signal can be either continuous or discrete, and it can be either periodic or a
periodic.

Rectangular Pulse Unit rectangular pulse Π (t)

Consider a tall, narrow, rectangular pulse of width τ second and amplitude 1/τ
occurring at time t=T. The general form of a pulse is:

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1. Unit Impulse Function(unit sample):
It is also called the “Dirac Delta Function”. The unit impulse sequence is a
signal that s zero everywhere except at n=0 where its value is unity.

δ (n) =1 for n=0

δ (n)=0 for n≠ 0

2. The unit step signal

u(n) =1 for n≥0

u(n) =0 for n<0

3. The unit ramp signal

ur(n) =n for n≥0

ur(n) =0 for n<0

4. triangular function

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And the general rule is:

1.5 Spectrum of a periodic pulse train:

This spectral envelope is given by the equation:

2 Aτ sin( πnτ / T )
sinc envelope = T (πnτ / T )

Which is usually termed the sinc function.

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