COMSATS INSTITUTE OF

INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
EEE 352 Analog
Communication Systems
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
DEPT

Introduction to
Communication Systems

Lesson-1

Communication System
Communication is the process of exchanging
information between source and destination
Routing of information requires a communication link Channel to transmit information between source and
destination.
In past ages communication is carried over by
runners, torches, pigeons etc. Such mediums are now
obsolete in modern communication systems.
Communication engineering deals with transmitting
information through electrical signals, i.e. information
or message such as spoken words, photographs, live
scenes and sounds are first converted to electrical
signals before being transmitted on communication
link to receiver or destination.
Electrical communication is reliable, fast and
economical at the same time. Modern communication
has applications such as e-banking, e-shopping,
teleconferencing etc a possible reality.

Block Schematic of Basic

Communication System

Baseband
signal

Recovered Baseband
signal

Figure: Above depiction shows subsystems of a basic communication system

in which sending receiving and processing of information is in electrical form.

Constituents of communication
systems
(i) Source (input message)
Source originates a message in non-electrical form such as
human voice, live scene, sound, data etc.
Input message can be:

Analog A signal whose amplitude can take on any value in

continous range i.e. analog signal amplitude can have
infinite number of values

Digital amplitude limited to finite set of values e.g. binary

signals have only two values a digital signal with M symbols
is called M-ary signal (M = 2 is a binary signal).

Analog Signals
An analog signal is a smoothly and continuously varying voltage or
current. Examples are:
Sine wave
Voice
Video (TV)

Figure : Analog signals (a) Sine wave tone. (b) Voice.

 Digital Signals
Digital signals change in steps or in discrete increments.
Most digital signals use binary or two-state codes. Examples are:
Telegraph (Morse code)
Serial binary code (used in computers)

Figure: Digital signals (a) Telegraph (Morse code). (b) Serial binary code.

(ii) Input Transducer:

A device that converts energy from one form to another.
Convert an input signal into an electrical waveform.
Example: microphone converts human voice into electrical signal
referred to as the baseband signal or message signal.
Input message

Eg. voice

input
transducer
microphone

Baseband/message
signal

Electrical signal

Principle: sound moves the cone and the attached coil of wire moves in the field of a magnet. The
generator effect produces a voltage which "images" the sound pressure variation - characterized as a
pressure microphone.

(iii) Transmitter (Tx):

Modifies or converts the baseband signal into format appropriate for
efficient channel of transmission.
Example: If the channel is fiber optic cable, the transmitter converts the
baseband signal into light frequency and the transmitted signal is light.
Transmitter also use to reformat/reshape the signal so that the channel
will not distort is as much - Signal Conditioning using a pre emphasizer which is a low
pass filter which limits the signal bandwidth

Modulation takes place in the transmitter. It involves static variation of

amplitude, phase or frequency of the carrier in accordance to a message
signal - Modulation is based on the principle of translating low frequency baseband signal
to a higher frequency spectrum using modulators eg AM,FM modulators if baseband signal is
analog otherwise digital modulation schemes are employed.

Transmitters may also include other subsystems for example sampler,

quantizer and coder for transmission of digitized signals.
Baseband/message
signal

transmitted signal
Tx
Optical signal

Baseband
signal

s(t)

Modulated
Stage

Modulated
signal

x(t)

Voltage
Amplifier
Stages

Power
Amplifier
Stages

To channel

Amplifier Stages

c(t)

Carrier
Oscillator

Fig: Block Schematic Representation of an Analog

Transmitter
The power of the modulated signal is amplified enough to reach the
receiver stage of communication system before transmitted on
channel.

(iv) Channel:
A medium through which the transmitter output is sent.
Divided into 2 basic groups:
Guided Electromagnetic Wave Channel eg. wire, coaxial cable,
optical fiber
Electromagnetic Wave Propagation Channel eg. Wireless broadcast
channel, mobile radio channel, satellite etc.
Introduces distortion, noise and interference in the channel,
transmitted signal is attenuated and distorted. Signal attenuation increase
along with the length of channel.
This results in corrupted transmitted signal received by receiver, Rx
Transmitted signal

Received signal
channel
Distortion &
Noise

Communication channel can be modeled as a filter that changes the characteristic

spectrum of baseband signal. This change is termed as channel distortion which is
a result of different amplitude attenuation and phase shift of each frequency

 The signal is not only distorted by channel but also

contaminated by additive noise,
which is random and
unpredictable.
Causes:
a) External man made nearby noises, automobile ignition
radiation, florescent light, natural noise from lightning.
b)Internal - thermal motion of electrons in conductors,
diffusion
or
recombination
of
charged
carriers
in
semiconductor electronics etc

Additive noise have the effect of reducing intelligibility of

recovered baseband signal and to reduce signal-to-noise ratio.

Proper care techniques may minimize noise level to a

certain extent but it can never eliminate its effect on channel
completely.

(v) Receiver (Rx)

Receiver decodes the received signal back to message signal i.e it
attempts to translate the received signal back into the original
message signal sent by the source.
Reprocess the signal received from the channel by undoing the signal
modification made by transmitter and the channel.
Extract the desired signal from the received signal and convert it to
a form that suitable for the output transducer demodulator.
Demodulation takes place in the receiver.
(vi) Output transducer
Convert electrical signals to its original waveform eg loudspeaker.

Received signal

Rx

Output signal

Output
transducer

speaker

Output message
voice

14

Modes of
communication
Broadcasting
Involves the use of a single powerful transmitter transmit to many
receivers. Demodulation takes place in the receiver.
Information-bearing signals flow in one direction
Eg. TV and radio (Simplex)
ii. Point to point Communication
Where a communication process takes place over a link between a
single transmitter and a receiver.
Information-bearing signals flow in bidirectional, which requires the
use of a transmitter and receiver at each end of the link
Eg. Telephone (Full Duplex) and walkie talkie (Half Duplex)

Noise Immunity of Digital

Signals
Digital messages are transmitted using
finite set of electrical waveforms.
For example a binary Morse Code with only
Mark and Space can be represented only
two pulses say mark is A/2 and space is
A/2

 As can be seen clearly the data can be recovered

correctly as long noise and distortion is within limits.
Regenerative repeater stations placed along the path of
communication channel allow clean detection of
transmitted pulses.
Thus preventing accumulation of noise along the signal
path by periodically cleaning the pulses at repeater
stations.

Noise in Analog Signals

In contrast of digital signals waveforms, analog
messages are important and a slight interference
in the message will cause error in received signal.
Noise adds up along the channel and may rise
against the signal power thus decreasing the SNR
of signal transmission.
Amplification is of little help since it will tend to
increase the noise level also along the signal
power, further deteriorating the quality of
received signal.
Thus distance become a limiting factor of analog
communication systems.

A/D and D/A

Analog to Digital conversion; Digital to Analog
conversion
Gateway from the communication device to the
channel
Can be achieved by Sampling and Quantization
(Read book: pg 5-7)

A/D and D/A (cont)

Quantization

Modulation
The basic idea here is to superimpose the
message signal in analog form on a carrier
which is a sinusoid of the form

ACos(wt + )
There are three quantities that can be varied
in proportion to the modulating signal: the
amplitude, the phase, and frequency.
The first scheme is called Amplitude
Modulation and the second two are called
Angle Modulation schemes

Why Modulate
Antenna size is a major concern
The radiating antenna should be (one
tenth=0.1) or more of the wavelength
For a speech signal (100 to 3000 Hz)
corresponding wavelength will be 3000 to
100 km
For 1MHz signal you need antenna size of
only 30 meter
=v/f
Where v = 3x108 m/s

Why Modulate
Simultaneous Transmission of several
Signals
Frequency Division Multiplex (FDM)
Time Division Multiplex (TDM)

SNR, Bandwidth and Rate of

Communication
1. Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR):
SNR is defined as the ratio of signal power to noise power. Noise
distorts the signal that is accumulated along the path.
The dB value is calculated by taking the log of the ratio of the
measured or calculated power (PS) w.r.t a reference power (PN) level.
Commonly referred to as the power ratio form for dB

SNRdB

Vs2 / Rin
Ps
10 log 10 log 2
Pn
Vn / Rout

dB

It is normally measured in Decibel (dB), defined as 10 times the

algorithm (to base 10) of the power ratio.
Eg.: SNR of 10, 100 and 1000 correspond to 10, 20, and 30dBs,
respectively.
dBm is a dB level using a 1mW reference.
Signal power, S related to the quality of transmission.

Example
A receiver produces a
noise power of 200mW with no
signal. The output level increases to
5 W when a signal is applied.
Calculate SNR as in dBs.
Ans: 13.97 dBs

2 Bandwidth

Bandwidth is that portion of the spectrum occupied by a

signal.

Specifically, bandwidth is the difference between the upper

and lower frequency limits of the signal or the equipment
operation range.

Figure below, shows the bandwidth of the voice frequency

range from 300 to 3000Hz. The upper frequency is f2 and the
lower frequency is f1. The bandwidth, then is 2700Hz
BW = f2 f1
Bandwidth is the frequency range
over which equipment operates or
that portion of the spectrum
occupied by the signal. This is the
voice frequency bandwidth.

Bandwidth (B) of a channel is the range of frequencies that it

can transmit with reasonable fidelity.
Bandwidth of an information signal is the difference between
the highest and lowest frequencies contained in the information.
Bandwidth of a communication channel is the difference
between the highest and lowest frequencies that the channel
will allow to pass through it (ie: its pass band).
Data rate proportional to bandwidth

Randomness
Noise is a limiting factor in
communication systems
Randomness is because of Noise,
which is the essence of
Communication System

Rate of Communication

Rate of information transmission is directly proportional with its

bandwidth

Shannon limit for information capacity, C

C(bps)
Where
B

= B log2 (1 + SNR)
C

= information capacity (bps)

= bandwidth (Hz)
SNR
= signal to noise ratio (no unit)
This is the upper limit for channel capacity for given bandwidth B
and signal-to-noise ration SNR for which channel can pass
Information with probability of error approximately equal to zero

Example 1 - For a standard telephone circuit with a SNR of 30dB

and a bandwidth of 2.7 kHz, determine the Shannon limit for
information capacity.

Ans: 26.919 kbps

Example 2 The telephone channel has a bandwidth of about
3kHz. Calculate the capacity of a telephone channel that has an
SNR of 1023.
Ans: 30 kbps