Communication Systems

Lecture #1: Overview

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 What is Communications?

† Definition: Communications is the

transfer of information at one time or
location to another time or location
† Generic Communication System:
Information Channel Receiver Destination
Transmitter
Source or ‘sink’

Original Transmit Received Estimated

information Signal Signal Information
signal Signal
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 Communication Systems
† Information Source
„ Information may take many forms: data, image, voice,
video
„ Information can be either analog or digital
† Analog information can also be ‘digitized’
„ Information is defined as the amount of “surprise” at the rx.
† Transmitter
„ Processes information and puts it into a form suitable for
transmission
„ This typically means transforming into an electromagnetic
signal
† Can be either ‘baseband’ or ‘bandpass’
† Channel
„ Relays information between locations (without perfect
fidelity)
† Receiver
„ Must reconstruct transmitted information from the corrupted
received waveform as accurately as possible

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Examples
† Broadcast Radio
„ Music and voice are transmitted from a broadcast station to
large number of receivers (i.e., radios) over the air
† Broadcast Television
„ Images are transmitted from a broadcast station to a large
number of receivers (i.e., TVs) over the air
† Telephone system
„ Voice (digital data also possible) transmitted from one point to
another point (i.e., one phone to another) through wires (both
copper and optical fiber)
† Cellular telephone
„ Voice (digital data also possible) transmitted from one point to
another point through both wires and over the air
† Internet (computer networks)
„ Digital data transmitted from one point to another point
through wires
† Satellite communication systems
„ Digital data or voice transmitted from one point to another
point using satellite as an intermediate transmitter/receiver
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 Key Inventions in the History of
Communications
† ~3000 B.C. Written † 1948 Information Theory
Language (Shannon)
† 1440 Printed Type † 1950 Digital Long Distance
(Gutenberg) Telephone Lines (Bell Labs)
† 1844 Telegraph (Morse) † 1962 Telstar I
† 1876 Telephone (Bell) communication satellite
† 1897 Wireless Telegraph (Bell Labs)
(Marconi) † 1979 First commercial
† 1918 Practical AM receiver cellular telephone
(Armstrong) (Motorola/AT&T)
† 1920 First Radio Broadcasts † 1990 Second Generation
(Digital) cellular systems
† 1928 Television (Farnsworth) (TDMA)
† 1933 FM Radio (Armstrong) † 1993 CDMA Cellular
† 1936 BBC begins first TV systems
broadcasts † 2002 - Third Generation
Cellular Systems
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What Makes a Good
Communication System
† Good Received Signal Fidelity
„ Analog System: high Signal-to-Noise Ratio
(SNR)
„ Digital System: low Bit Error Rate (BER)
† Low Transmit Signal Power
† A large amount of information is transmitted
† Signal occupies a small bandwidth
† System has a low cost (complexity?)
„ Complex digital operations have steadily
grown cheaper
† Communications engineers must trade off all of
these

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Examples of Tradeoffs in
Communication Designs
† Satellite and Deep Space Communications
„ Power is expensive to generate in space and
transmission distances are enormous - Must
be very energy efficient
† Microwave Relay Towers
„ Power is cheap, but available bandwidth is
restricted by regulation - Must be very
bandwidth efficient
† Cellular Phones
„ Power is costly (impacts battery life and size)
but bandwidth is also limited - Must be both
bandwidth and power efficient
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Digital vs. Analog
Communications
† Digital Communications System
„ transmit a finite number of signals
„ text and data are naturally digital information sources
† Analog Communications
„ transmit a continuous (uncountably infinite) range of
signals
„ voice and video are natural analog information sources
† An analog information source can be converted
into a digital source by
„ Sampling the signal in time
„ Quantizing the signal amplitude to a finite number of
levels

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Digital vs. Analog
† In this course we will spend much of out
time investigating analog modulation
techniques despite the fact that all new
communication systems are digital
† However, digital modulation is simply
analog modulation where the message
signal is binary (or M-ary)
„ We will show how analog modulation techniques
apply to digital modulation
† We will also spend some of the class
discussing baseband digital communications
† Digital Communications studies
bandpass digital techniques in detail

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 Bandpass vs. Baseband

† The information signal or message signal m(t) is a

baseband signal, that is it contains energy about
D.C. (f = 0)
† The transmitted signal may be at baseband or may
be a bandpass signal, that is it contains energy about
f = fc where fc >> 0.
† Wireless signals are (almost) always bandpass due to
FCC regulations and physical antenna limitations
whereas wireline signals could be either bandpass or
baseband .
† Each wireless application is assigned a specific
frequency band in which it can radiate energy. This
is one reason why Fourier Transforms (spectral
information) are so important in communications. 32
To Study Communication Systems
you must understand….

† Signals and Systems

„ We will briefly review
† Modulation Theory
„ We will study this in detail
† Fourier Analysis
„ We will review this in detail and use it throughout the course
† Detection Theory
„ Given that this signal is corrupt at the receiver, how do we
determine the original signal?
„ We will examine this through a measure termed signal-to-
noise ratio
† Probability Theory
„ Since the transmit signal and noise are both unknown to the
receiver, we can use probability theory to study
communications systems
„ We will touch on this aspect for analog systems but will defer
detailed discussion for Digital Communications

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Signals and Systems
† In this class we will rely on mathematical
representations of signals and systems to describe
communications
„ Relies on background obtained from Linear Systems
† A system is characterized by inputs and outputs which
are mathematically modeled as signals
† We will also mathematically represent the signals at
various points within a communications system
† Mathematical representations of the various
components of the system can be viewed as
subsystems with input-output relationships defined by
„ Impulse response in the time domain
„ Transfer function in the frequency domain

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System Representation
† H typically used to represent the system
† x(t) typically used to represent the excitation or input to the
system
† y(t) typically used to represent the response or output of the
system
† Systems can have multiple inputs and/or mulitple outputs
† Example of a Single-Input Single Output system:

x(t) H y(t)

† For Linear Systems: y (t ) = x (t ) ⊗ h (t ) Y ( f )= X ( f )H ( f )

N N N N NN
output input impulse output input Transfer
response Function

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System Properties
† There are several properties of systems that
are important to understand
† Many properties allow us to make
simplifications in our analysis
† Specific properties
„ Homogeneity
„ Time Invariance
„ Additivity
„ Linearity
„ Stability
„ Causality
„ Memory
„ Invertibility

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Mathematical Descriptions

† Many systems which are encountered in

engineering process signals which represent
physical processes that are measured,
controlled, or recorded.
† We design and analyze systems by
representing these signals using
mathematical descriptions which are
typically functions of time or space.
† Our representations will not exactly match
the real-world signals, but they are
sufficiently close to allow extremely accurate
prediction of the system behavior.

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Physically Realizable Functions
†Have finite time duration (finite
energy!)
†Occupy finite frequency spectrum
†Are continuous
†Have finite peak value
†Are real-valued
†All real-world signals will have these
properties, although sometimes we
use mathematical models which
violate these conditions.
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 Mathematical Representations

•Extends to infinity
in time.
discontinuity mathematical representation •Has infinite
frequency extent

•Ends after T seconds

•Has finite frequency
content
continuous
Real signal

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Classification of Signals

† Although functions can operate on any type

of variable, we will be most concerned with
functions of time
† Signals (or more specifically their
mathematical representations) can be
categorized according to a few major
features
„ Continuous Time vs. Discrete Time
„ Deterministic vs. Random
„ Power vs. Energy
„ Periodic vs. Aperiodic

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Conclusions

† Today we have
„ Described the basic components of the
course and the class mechanics
„ Provided an overview of the course
content
† Next lecture we will
„ Begin our discussion of the Fourier
Analysis for communication systems by
examining the Fourier Series

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