4/1/2011

Lecture Outline IT-162

WEEK 05 Topic
Transmission Systems: What is a Transmission System Ways of Transmitting information Medium of Transmission Types and Characteristics of Transmission Mediums Advantages and Disadvantages of different mediums

Lecture 10

Fundamentals of Information Technology

Lecture #10

Examples of wireless and wired transmission systems Transmission Systems

Air

A transmission system is a system that transmits a signal from one place to another. The signal can be an electrical, optical or radio signal.
There are fundamentally two different ways to transmit information:

Wireless

Coax cable
Wired

Wireless systems:

using free space as the transmission medium using copper wire, coax cable, fiber-optic cable, etc.

Fiber optic cable

Wired systems:

Wire as a Transmission Medium

Types of Wires

Wired transmission systems are currently the most common and versatile transmission systems Wire based transmission schemes carry signals within a pair of separate wires or inside a coaxial (coax) arrangement A coax cable has both a center conductor and a second shield conductor These conductors are separated by an insulating material, such that the shield conductor entirely surrounds the center conductor

In the case of non coaxial transmission, the pair of wires may be held either parallel to each other by a stiff insulating material, or individually insulated and twisted around each other A surrounding shield may be placed around the resulting twisted pair to form a shielded twisted pair (STP) If a surrounding shield is not placed around the twisted pair, then this arrangement is called an unshielded twisted pair (UTP)

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Parallel wires

Cable characteristics
UTP

STP

When a signal is traversing through a cable, the signal loses energy, and its intensity is diminished This results in a decrease in signal amplitude at the receiving end, which is termed as attenuation In other terms, the magnitude of the signal diminishes as it reaches the end of the cable
Original signal Cable Attenuated signal

Coax

Cable characteristics..Cont

Typical attenuation figures for various cables:

Cable type
Cheap

The longer the cable, the larger the attenuation! The larger (radius) the conductor in the cable, the lower the attenuation (up to some extent) It is desirable to use larger, more expensive cables in situations that require high transmission quality over long distances High transmission quality means that the receiver is able to detect correctly if a 1 or a 0 is transmitted If a signal is highly attenuated at the receiving end, the receiver will not be able to distinguish between the levels of 1 and 0, and this will lead to erroneous transmission of information

Signal attenuation per 1000 ft @100 MHz 56 dB 37.5 dB 60 dB 20 dB

UTP STP Coax (thin ethernet) Coax (thick ethernet)

Expensive

The Decibel
What is a decibel? In electrical engineering, the decibel (abbreviated as dB) is a logarithmic unit used to describe the ratio between two power levels (or voltage/current levels provided same resistance) Power (P): unit of measurement is watts (W)

Fiber Optics as a Transmission Medium

dBP = 10 log10 P2/P1 (power ratio)

Original signal
P = input 1 power

Attenuated signal Cable

P =output 2 power

Information is carried through a fiber optic cable by transmitting pulses of light An electrical signal arriving at one end of the fiber optic transmission system can be converted to light by a laser or LED, and sent through the fiber optic cable A receiver, at the other end of the fiber optic cable can be used to convert the light back into an electrical signal A fiber optic cable is a coaxial arrangement of glass or plastic material of immense clarity (i.e., highly transparent) A clear cylinder of optical material called the core is surrounded by another clear wrapper of optical material called the cladding These two materials are selected to have different indices of refraction The fiber is surrounded by a plastic or teflon jacket to protect and stiffen the fiber

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Principle of fiber optic cables

Cross section of optical fiber cable

Light is guided through the optical fiber by continual reflection from the core-cladding boundary This is made possible due to the different refractive indices of the core and cladding materials The index of refraction of a material affects the angle by which a light ray is bent while passing through the material If the light incident on the core-cladding boundary is at a suitable angle, then the light will be totally reflected from the boundary. This is called total internal reflection

Advantages and disadvantages of fiber optic cables

Core and cladding with different indices of refraction Advantages: High Data Rate (Gbps) Fiber optic cables can support very high data rates Immunity to Noise - Immune to electromagnetic interference (EMI). Safety - Doesnt transmit electrical signals, making it safe in environments like a gas pipeline High Security Very difficult to tap into Low attenuation- Fibers can be made to have only 0.2 dB/km of attenuation, so repeaters can be spaced very far apart Reliability - More resilient than copper in extreme environmental conditions Size - Lighter and more compact than copper Disadvantages: Cost: Cost of interfacing equipment necessary to convert electrical signals to optical signals Splicing: Splicing (Linking together) fiber optic cables is also more difficult

Core-cladding boundary