CHAPTER 1: Introduction to

Communication Systems
 Topics Covered in Chapter 1
1. Introduction to Communication Systems
2. Terminology
3. The Electromagnetic Spectrum
4. Bandwidth
5. Types of Electronic Communication
6. Modulation and Multiplexing
7. Decibel and Power
Introduction to Communication System
Communication is the process of exchanging
information form one point to another.
Main barriers are language and distance
Contemporary societys emphasis is now on the
accumulation, packaging and exchange of
information.
Should be efficient, reliable, and secure.
Requires transmitter, channel or medium and
receiver.
During the communication process, noise degrades
or interferes with the transmitted information.
 Transmitter

Base band Modulation and Transmission

Signal source (Electromagnetic
converter power amplification
Field)

Subsystem
synchronization

Receiver
Amplification and Base band Base band
demodulation inverter processing

Electromagnetic Synchronization
field system
 TERMINOLOGY
Electronic communication
transmission,
reception and processing of information
between 2 or more locations using electronic circuit.
Information
Thecommodity produced by the source for transfer to
some user at the destination.
Message
The physical manifestation of information as produced by
the information source.
Signals
A physical embodiment of information voltage signal or
current signal
TYPES OF SIGNALS
analog signal : a continuously varying
voltage or current
e.g. sound, video

digital signal : binary pulses

or codes

Figure 1.3 : Examples of signals (a) analog (b) digital.

 TERMINOLOGY
Transmitter (Tx)
collectionof one or more electronic devices or circuits that
converts the original source into a signal that is more
suitable for transmission over a given transmission medium,
e.g. modulation, coding, mixing, translate
Other functions performed - Amplification, filtering,
radiation (antenna)
Message converted into electrical signals by transducers
Receiver (Rx)
collection of electronic devices and circuits that accepts the
transmitted signal from the transmission medium and
converts them back to their original form, e.g.. mixing,
demodulation, decoding
Other functions performed: Amplification, filtering.
Transducer converts the electrical signal at its input into a
form desired by the system used
 Modulation

a process of changing one or more properties of the

analog carrier in proportion to the information signal.
Mixing
A process of combining two or more signals.
Filtering
A process of removing some unwanted components or
features from a signal.
Most often, this means removing some frequencies and
not others in order to suppress interfering signals and
reduce background noise.
 Base band converter

toconvert the signal source into base band waveform for

the carrier signal before transmission. Can be either
analog or digital system.
Subsystem synchronization
synchronizingconnection between the TX and RX for
recovery processes.
Transmission medium
provides a means of transporting signal from the Tx to the
Rx.
e.g.: copper wire (signal as electrical current flow),
optical fiber cable (signal in electromagnetic light wave),
free space (signal in electromagnetic radio wave)
ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM
Electromagnetic wave is
a signal where its electric
and magnetic field
change at fixed rate.
Frequency range for
communication start
roughly from 200kHz until
few giga Hertz (GHz).

Figure 3 : Electromagnetic wave

E: Electric fields B: Magnetic fields

 Frequency (f)
no. of times a periodic motion occurs in a given period of
time
Hertz (Hz) or cycles per second
Period = time for one repetition (T)
T = 1/ f

cycle
one complete alternation of a waveform

wavelength ()
distance traveled by an electromagnetic wave during one
period
= cT f = c
c = 3 x 108 ms-1 (speed of light in free space)
Designation Freq. Range (Hz) range (m)
ELF 30 300 107 106
VF 300 3 k 106 105
VLF 3 k 30 k 105 104
LF 30 k 300 k 104 103
MF 300 k 3 M 103 102
HF 3 M 30 M 102 101
VHF 30 M 300 M 101 100
UHF 300 M 3 G 100 10-1
SHF 3 G 30 G 10-1 10-2
EHF 30 G 300 G 10-2 10-3

Table 1: Frequency range (a) designation (b) applications

 Extremely Low Frequency (ELF)
ac power line distribution (50 and 60 Hz)
low freq telemetry signal
Voice Frequency (VF)
human speech (most intelligent sound)
Very Low Frequency (VLF)
upper end of human hearing range
musical instrument
government and military (e.g.. submarine)
Low Frequency (LF)
marine and aeronautical navigation
as subcarriers
 Medium Frequency (MF)
AM radio broadcasting
marine and aeronautical comm application
High Frequency (HF)
Also known as short wave (SW)
2-way radio communication
SW radio broadcast amateur radio and citizen band
(CB)
Very High Frequency (VHF)
mobile radio
marine and aeronautical communication
FM broadcast, TV, amateur radio
 Ultra High Frequency (UHF)
* frequency > 1GHz is known as microwave
TV, amateur radio
land mobile communication, cellular phone
Military, certain radar and navigation system
microwave and satellite radio system
Super High Frequency (SHF)
microwave and satellite radio system, radar
specialized form of 2-way radio
Extremely High Frequency (EHF)
seldom used in radio communication except in very
sophisticated, expensive and specialized application
satellite communication, Radar
 Infrared*
refers to electromagnetic radiation generally associated with
heat
anything that produced heat generate infrared signal e.g. :
light bulb, human body
astronomy (to detect stars), electronic photography
heat-seeking guidance system (weapon)
TV remote control
visible light
optical communication

* freq > 300 GHz are not referred as radio wave

 BANDWIDTH
Bandwidth
Portion of the electromagnetic
spectrum occupied by the signal
Frequency range over which a receiver
or other electronic circuits operate.
Difference between the upper and
lower limit frequency, limits of the
signal, or equipment operation range
Channel bandwidth
Range of frequencies required to
transmit the desired information
e.g. an audio signal (3kHz) being
modulated by a 1000kHz carrier signal
using AM modulation
 TRANSMISSION MEDIUM
Guided coaxial cable, twisted pair, fiber optic,
waveguide.
Unguided wireless (terrestrial, spacewave, free
space, earth wave).
Characteristics and quality determined by medium
and signal.
For guided, the medium is more important.
For unguided, the bandwidth produced by the
antenna is more important.
Key concerns are data rate and distance.

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Characteristics of Wireless Propagation
Signal travels along three routes
Ground wave
Follows contour of earth
Up to 2MHz
AM radio
Sky wave
2 MHz < f < 30 MHz
Amateur radio, BBC world service, Voice ofAmerica
Signal refracted from ionosphere layer of upper atmosphere
Line of sight
Above 30MHz
cellular phone

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 TRANSMISSION IMPAIRMENTS
any undesired effect on the signals while traveling
from the transmitter to the receiver, such as noise,
attenuation, interference and other losses caused
by the atmosphere or the medium itself
Analog - degradation of signal quality
Digital - bit errors
Caused by
Attenuation
Noise
Interference

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 Noise
random, undesired electrical energy that enters the
communication system via the circuits/devices or
communication media (i.e. inserted between Tx and
Rx) and interferes with the transmitted message.
Attenuation
drop in signal power due to distance travel by the
signal.
Interference
noise signal that has the same frequency as the
information signal.

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 Bit Error Rate
Another significant measure of system performance in
term of noise is bit error rate (BER)
Specify the number of bits that are corrupted or
destroy as data are transmitted from TX to the RX
BER of 10-6 indicate that 1 bit out of 1 million bits is
corrupted in the transmission
Several factor contribute to BER is
Bandwidth
Transmission speed
Transmission medium
Environment
Transmission distance
Transmitter and receiver performance

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TYPES OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION
Can be classified in three ways
Transmission mode (one-way, two-way)
Analog or digital system
Baseband or broadband transmission

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Transmission Mode
One-way (Simplex)
info travels in 1 direction only
receive-only, transmit-only
e.g.. Radio and TV broadcasting, telemetry system
Two-way (duplex)
a) half duplex
both direction, but only one way at a time
2-way-alternate, either-way, over-and-out
e.g. police radio
b) Full duplex
Both directions at the same time
2-way-simultaneous, both-way
e.g.. telephone

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Analog Or Digital System
Analog system
energy is transmitted and received in analog form
both info and carrier are analog signals

Digital system
Digital transmission
a true digital system where digital pulses are transferred
between 2 or more points
no analog carrier
original source info may be in digital or analog signal
if analog signal convert to digital pulses prior to
transmission and converted back to analog signal at the RX
require a physical medium between TX-RX

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 Digital radio
transmission of digitally modulated analog carriers between
2 or more points
modulating signal and demodulated signals are digital pulses
the digital pulses could originate from a digital transmission
system, from a digital source i.e. computer, or a binary
encoded analog signal
transmission medium may be physical facility or free space

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 Advantages of Digital Transmission
Digital technology
Low cost LSI/VLSI technology
Data integrity
Longer distances over lower quality lines
Capacity utilization
High bandwidth links economical
High degree of multiplexing easier with digital techniques
Security & Privacy
Encryption

Integration
Can treat analog and digital data similarly
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 Baseband Or Broadband Transmission
Baseband transmission
putting the original signal directly into the medium
Baseband:
Digital signals are used, but it can also be used with analog
technologies.
Frequency division multiplexing is not possible
Baseband is bi-directional transmission
Short distance signal travelling
Entire bandwidth of the cable is consumed by a single signal
in a baseband transmission.
Eg : (i) Ethernet

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 Broadband transmission
original signal is used to modulate a carrier for
transmission over the medium
Broadband:
Analog signals are used
Transmission of data is unidirectional
Signal travelling distance is long
Frequency division multiplexing is possible.
The signals are sent on multiple frequencies and allow all
the multiple signals are sent simultaneously in broadband
transmission.
Eg : (i) Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and Cable Television
Networks
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Encoding Techniques
From the previous discussion, it is obvious that we
can have 4 types of transmission system.
Digital data, digital signal
Analog data, digital signal
Digital data, analog signal
Analog data, analog signal

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Digital Data, Digital Signal
Need to know
Timing of bits - when they start and end
Signal levels
Factors affecting successful interpreting of signals
Signal to noise ratio
Data rate
Bandwidth
Example
Nonreturn to Zero-Level (NRZ-L)
Nonreturn to Zero Inverted (NRZI)
Bipolar AMI
Manchester
Differential Manchester

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Digital Data, Analog Signal
Public telephone system
300Hz to 3400Hz
Use modem (modulator
- demodulator)

Example
Amplitude shift keying
(ASK)
Frequency shift keying
(FSK)
Phase shift keying (PSK)

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Analog Data, Digital Signal
Digitization
Conversion of analog data into digital data
Digital data can then be transmitted using digital
encoding such as NRZ-L
Digital data can then be converted to analog signal
Analog to digital conversion done using a codec
Example
Pulse code modulation
Delta modulation

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Analog Data, Analog Signals
modulate analog signals to the higher
frequency
Types of analog modulation
Amplitude (AM)
Frequency (FM)
Phase (PM)
Modulation : process of changing one or
more properties (amplitude, frequency,
phase) of the carrier in proportion with
the info signal

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MODULATION
Why?
It is extremely difficult to radiate low frequency signals
from an antenna in the form of electromagnetic energy
it is possible theoretically but impractical realistically
=, f,
antenna length usually 1/2 or 1/4 of
Thus, for voice signal (300 - 3000 Hz), require very large
antenna expensive to construct and consume more
pore (aperture).

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 Infosignal often occupy the same frequency
band, and if signals from 2 or more sources are
transmitted at the same time, they would
interfere with each other
e.g. all commercial FM station broadcast voice and music
signals that occupy the AF from 300 Hz - 15 kHz
to avoid interference, each station converts its into to a
different frequency band
more space at higher frequency many channels can be
formed to carry many simultaneous communication
without interference

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 MULTIPLEXING
Transmission of info from more than one source
over the same transmission medium
increase the no. of communication channel
more info transmitted reduce cost and higher
utilization of the transmission line

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Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM)
Multiple signals share common BW of a single
communication channel
Useful BW of medium exceeds required bandwidth
of channel
each signal occupies a separate portion of the BW
Each signal modulates a different sub-carrier freq
Sub-carriers are linearly mixed to form a
composite signal that is usually used to modulate a
final carrier for transmission
carrier frequencies separated so signals do not
overlap (guard bands)
Channel allocated even if no data
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at the RX, the recovering
of the individual signal is
done with a DEMUX whose
main component is BPF
tuned to the individual
sub-carrier freq.
For analog signal, i.e.
radio broadcast

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Time Division Multiplexing (TDM)
Each channel is assigned a
time slot and may transmit
for a brief period using the
entire BW of the medium
Data rate of medium exceeds
data rate of digital signal to
be transmitted
signal sources takes times to
transmit
Time slots do not have to be
evenly distributed amongst
sources
for both analog and digital
signal
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 Gain
Ratio output to the input
Output has greater amplitude than the input
output Vout
AV
input Vin

FIgure 1.4 Amplifier Gain

Most amplifiers are power amplifier, the same

procedure can be used to calculate power gain, Ap.
Ap = Pout/Pin
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Example 1.1
What is the gain of an amplifier that produces an output of 750
mV for 30 V input?

Example 1.2
The power output of an amplifier is 6 W. The power gain is 80.
What is the input power?

Example 1.3
Three cascade amplifier have power gains of 5, 2, and 17. The
input power is 40 mW. What is the output power?

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 Attenuation
Refers to loss introduced by a
circuit
Output is less than input

, =

For cascade circuit, total
attenuation is
= 1 2 3
Voltage divider network may
introduce attenuation

Figure 1.5 Voltage divider introduces attenuation

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 Figure 1.6 Total attenuation in cascaded network

Attenuation can be
offset by introducing
gain

Figure 1.7 Gain offsets the attenuation

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Figure 1.8 Total gain is the product of the individual stage gains and attenuation

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Example 1.4
A voltage divider shown in Figure 1.7 has values of R1 =
10k and R2 = 47k.
1. What is the attenuation?
2. What amplifier gain would you need to offset the loss
for an overall gain of 1?

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Example 1.5
An amplifier has gain of 45,000, which is too much for the
amplification. With an input voltage of 20 V, what attenuation
factor is needed to keep the output voltage from exceeding
100mV? Let A1= amplifier gain = 45,000; A2 = attenuation factor;
AT = total gain.

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Decibel - Gain
A common way to express power, gain and loss is to use the
decibel unit.
The conversion from absolute value to decibel is given by
() = 10log10 ( )
dB is not really a unit, it is just a notation to tell the reader
that the value is given in dB.
E.g. 2 in dB is 10 log10 2 = 3.
E.g. 0.5 in dB is 10 log10 0.5 = 3 (Loss)
Logarithmic nature of dB large range in absolute value is
compressed
Gain and attenuation (loss) often expressed in decibels,
rather than absolute value
Using decibel, total gain or attenuation can be calculated by
simply adding the gains and the attenuation expressed in
decibel

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Decibel - Power
Decibel is also used to expressed power in communication.
A notation is added after the dB simbol
dBW, dBm, dB etc.
dBm and dBW are decibel units used for expressing power in
communication.
For dBm, reference level (denominator) 1mW
A larger unit, dBW has reference value of 1W.
1
E.g. 1 mW 10 log10 =0 Notice that the
1


1000 notation dBm is
E.g. 1000mW 10 log10 =
1
30 used for power in
E.g 1000 mW = 1W 10 log10
1
=0 mW and dBW for
1
power in Watt.

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Examples

Power in mW dBm dBW

0.01 -20
0.1 -10
0.5 -3
1 0
2 3
10 10
100 20
1000 30

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Decibel - Power Ratio
Decibel (dB) is also used to measure ratios, i.e. gain,
attenuation, SNR.
Power ratio in communication is usually expressed in dB.
dB = 10 log10 (P1/P2)
For ratios, there is no unit (just dB to tell the value is in dB)
Voltage or current ratios can also be expressed in dB

V out
For voltage dB 20 log
Vin
Iout
For current dB 20 log
I in
Pout
For power dB 10 log
Pin

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Example 1.6
A microphone has output value of -50dBm, calculate the actual
output power?

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 Example 1.7
For a three-stage system with an input power Pin = -20 dBm and power gains
of the three stages are 13 dB, 16 dB, and -6 dB, determine the output power:

1. in dBm
2. in mW