Wireless Information Transmission System Lab.

Chapter 1 Introduction

Institute of Communications Engineering National Sun Yat-sen University

 Table of Contents
Elements of a Digital Communication System
Communication Channels and Their Characteristics
Wire-line channels
Fiber-optic channels
Wireless electromagnetic channels
Underwater acoustic channels
Storage channels
Mathematical Models for Communication Channels
The additive noise channel
The linear filter channel
The linear time-variant filter channel
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 Introduction
The subject of digital communications involves the
transmission of information in digital form from a
source that generates the information to one or more
destinations.
Of particular importance in the analysis and design of
communication systems are the characteristics of the
physical channels through which the information is
transmitted.
The characteristics of the channel generally affect the
design of the basic building blocks of the
communication system.
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 1.1 Elements of A Digital
Communications System
From Other Sources

Information Bits Source Bits Channel Bits

TX
Source Channel Frequency Multiple
Format Encryption Interleaving Multiplexing Modulation RF
Encoding Encoding Spreading Access
PA

si (t )
Digital
Input C
mi H
A
Bit Digital
Synchronization N
Stream Waveform N
Digital E
Output L
m̂ i
sˆi (t )
RX
Source Channel Frequency Multiple
Format Decryption Deinterleaving Demultiplexing Demodulation RF
Decoding Decoding Despreading Access
IF

Information Sink Source Bits Channel Bits

Optional
Essential To Other Destinations

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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Physical channels:
A pair of wires that carry the electrical signal;
An optical fiber that carries the information on a modulated
light beam;
An underwater ocean channel in which the information is
transmitted acoustically;
Free space over which the information-bearing signal is
radiated by use of an antenna;
Data storage media, such as magnetic tape, magnetic disks,
and optical disks.

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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Problems in signal transmission through channels:
Thermal noise: generated internally by components such as
resistors and solid-state devices.
External noise and interference from other users.
Signal attenuation.
Amplitude and phase distortion.
Multi-path distortion.
Two limitations constrain the amount of data that can
be transmitted reliably over any communication
channel:
Power.
Available channel bandwidth.
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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Wire-line channels
Twisted-pair wire lines are generally used to connect a
customer to a central office with a bandwidth of about 4 kHz.
Prone to cross talk interference from physically adjacent channels.
Coaxial cable has a usable bandwidth of several megahertz
(MHz).

Signals transmitted through wireline channels are

distorted in both amplitude and phase and further
corrupted by additive noise.

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1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics

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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Fiber-optic channels
Optical fibers offer the communication system designer a
channel bandwidth that is several orders of magnitude larger
than coaxial cable channels.
During the past two decades, optical fiber cables have been
developed that have a relatively low signal attenuation, and
highly reliable photonic devices have been developed for
signal generation and signal detection.
The transmitter or modulator in a fiber-optic communication
system is a light source, either a light-emitting diode (LED)
or a laser.
Information is transmitted by varying the intensity of the
light source with the message signal.

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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics

Fiber-optic channels (cont.)

The light propagates through the fiber as a light wave and is
amplified periodically along the transmission path to
compensate for signal attenuation.
In the case of digital transmission, light is detected and
regenerated by repeaters.
At the receiver, the light intensity is detected by a
photodiode, whose output is an electrical signal that varies
in direct proportion to the power of the light impinging on
the photodiode.

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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Wireless electromagnetic channels
Electromagnetic energy is coupled to the propagation
medium by an antenna which depends primarily on the
frequency of operation.
The physical size and the configuration of the antenna
depend primarily on the frequency of operation.
To obtain efficient radiation of electromagnetic energy, the
antenna must be longer than 1/10 of the wavelength.
The mode of propagation of electromagnetic waves in the
atmosphere and in free space may be subdivided into three
categories:
Ground-wave propagation;
Sky-wave propagation;
Line-of-sight (LOS) propagation.

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1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics

Why the available channel

bandwidth is limited?

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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
VLF and Audio Band
In the very low frequency (VLF) and audio frequency bands,
where the wavelengths exceed 10 km, the earth and the
ionosphere (電離層) act as a wave guide for electromagnetic
wave propagation.
Communication signals practically propagate around the globe
and, as a result, these frequency bands are primarily used to
provide navigational aids from shore to ships around the world.
Channel bandwidths are relatively small and information is
generally confined to digital transmission.
A dominant type of noise is generated from thunderstorm
activity around the globe.

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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Ground-wave propagation
The dominant mode of propagation for frequencies in the
medium frequency (MF) band (0.3 – 3 MHz).
Used for AM broadcasting and maritime radio broadcasting.
In AM broadcasting, the range is limited to about 150 km.

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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Sky-wave propagation
Transmitted signal being reflected from the ionosphere, which
consists of several layers of charged particles ranging in
altitude from 50 to 400 km above the surface of the earth.
A frequently occurring problem in the high frequency (HF)
range is signal multi-path, which results in inter-symbol
interference and signal fading.

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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Sky-wave propagation (cont.)
During the daytime hours, the heating of the lower atmosphere
by the sun causes the formation of the lower layers at altitudes
below 120 km.
These lower layers, especially the D-layer, serve to absorb
frequencies below 2MHz, thus severely limiting sky-wave
propagation of AM radio broadcast.
During the nighttime hours, the electron density in the lower
layers of the ionosphere drops sharply and the frequency
absorption that occurs during the day time is significantly
reduced.
Powerful AM radio broadcast stations can propagate over large
distances via sky wave over the F-layer of the ionosphere,
which ranges from 140 to 400 km above the surface of the earth.
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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Sky-wave propagation (cont.)
Sky-wave ionospheric propagation ceases to exist at frequencies
above approximately 30 MHz, which is the end of HF band.
It is possible to have ionospheric scatter propagation at
frequencies in the range 30-60 MHz, resulting from signal
scattering from the lower ionosphere.
It is also possible to communicate over distances of several
hundred miles by use of tropospheric (對流層) scattering at
frequencies in the range 40-300 MHz.
Troposcatter results from signal scattering due to particles in the
atmosphere at altitudes of 10 miles or less.
Ionospheric scatter and tropospheric scatter involve large signal
propagation losses and require a large amount of transmitter
power and relatively large antennas.
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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Line-of-sight propagation (LOS)
At frequencies in the very high frequency (VHF) band and
higher, the dominant mode of electromagnetic propagation is
LOS propagation.
Frequencies above 30 MHz propagate through the ionosphere
with relatively little loss and make satellite and extraterrestrial
communications possible.
For terrestrial communication systems, transmitter and
receiver antennas must be in direct LOS with relatively little or
no obstruction.
Television stations transmitting in the VHF and ultra high
frequency (UHF) bands mount their antennas on high towers
to achieve a broad coverage area.

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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Line-of-sight propagation (LOS)
In general, the coverage area for LOS propagation is limited
by the curvature of the earth.
d = 15 h km
where d is the distance and h is the antenna height in meter.
At frequencies in the super high frequency (SHF) band
above 10 GHz, atmospheric conditions play a major role in
signal propagation.
At 10 GHz, the attenuation ranges from about 0.003 dB/km in light
rain to about 0.3 db/km in heavy rain.
At 100 GHz, the attenuation ranges from about 0.1 dB/km in light
rain to about 6 dB/km in heavy rain.

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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Underwater acoustic channels
Electromagnetic waves do not propagate over long distances
under water except at extremely low frequencies.
Transmission of signals at such low frequencies is
prohibitively expensive because of the large and powerful
transmitters required.
The attenuation of electromagnetic waves in water can be
expressed in terms of the skin depth, which is the distance a
signal is attenuated by 1/e.
For seawater, the skin depth is
δ = 250 / f
where f is expressed in Hz and δ is in m.

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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Underwater acoustic channels
Acoustic signals propagate over distances of tens and even
hundreds of kilometers.
An underwater acoustic channel is characterized as a multi-
path channel due to signal reflections from the surface and
the bottom of the sea.
The signal multi-path components undergo time-varying
propagation delays that result in signal fading.
There is frequency-dependent attenuation, which is
approximately proportional to the square of the signal
frequency.
It is possible to implement efficient and highly reliable
underwater acoustic communication systems for
transmitting digital signals over large distances.
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 1.2 Communication Channels and Their
Characteristics
Storage channels
Magnetic tape, including digital audiotape and videotape,
magnetic disks used for storing large amounts of computer
data, optical disks used for computer data storage, and
compact disks are examples of data storage systems that can
be characterized as communication channels.
The process of storing data on a magnetic tape or a magnetic
or optical disk is equivalent to transmitting a signal over a
telephone or a radio channel.
Channel coding and modulation are essential components of a
well-designed digital magnetic or optical storage system.
In the readback process, the signal is demodulated and the
added redundancy introduced by the channel encoder is used
to correct errors in the readback signal.
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 1.3 Mathematical Models for
Communication Channels
In the design of communication systems for transmitting
information through physical channels, we find it
convenient to construct mathematical models that reflect
the most important characteristics of the transmission
medium.
The mathematical model for the channel is used in the
design of the channel encoder and modulator at the
transmitter and the demodulator and channel decoder at
the receiver.

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 1.3 Mathematical Models for
Communication Channels
The additive noise channel
The transmitted signal s(t) is corrupted by an additive
random noise process n(t).
Thermal noise is characterized statistically as a Gaussian
noise process.
When the signal undergoes attenuation in transmission
through the channel, the received signal is
r (t ) = α ⋅ s (t ) + n (t ) where α is the attenuatio n factor.

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 1.3 Mathematical Models for
Communication Channels
The linear filter channel
In some physical channels, such as wire-line telephone
channels, filters are used to ensure that the transmitted
signals do not exceed specified bandwidth limitations and
thus do not interfere with one another.
Such channels are generally characterized mathematically as
linear filter channels with additive noise.
∞
r (t ) = s (t ) ∗ c (t ) + n (t ) = ∫ c (τ ) s (t − τ ) dτ + n (t )
−∞

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 1.3 Mathematical Models for
Communication Channels
The linear time-variant filter channel
Physical channels such as underwater acoustic channels and
ionospheric radio channels that result in time-variant multi-
path propagation of the transmitted signal may be
characterized mathematically as time-variant linear filters.
∞
r (t ) = s (t ) ∗ c (τ ; t ) + n (t ) = ∫ c (τ ; t ) s (t − τ ) dτ + n (t )
−∞

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 1.3 Mathematical Models for
Communication Channels

The linear time-variant filter channel (cont.)

Channels such as the ionosphere (at frequencies below 30
MHz) and mobile cellular radio channels have the time-
variant impulse response of the form:
L
c (τ ; t ) = ∑ ak ( t ) δ (τ − τ k )
k =1
L
r (t ) = ∑ a k ( t ) s ( t − τ k ) + n ( t )
k =1

where the {ak ( t )} represents the possibly time-variant

attenuation factor for the L multipath propagation paths
and {τ k } are the corresponding time delays.

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