Digital Communication
Chapter 1 : Digital Transmission
Content
Basic principle and theories of Digital
communications system
Advantages and disadvantages of using digital
signals
Analog and Digital Data transmission
Transmission impairment
Error detector
Parity check, cyclic redundancy check, checksum
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Communication
Main purpose of communication is to transfer
information from a source to a recipient via a
channel or medium.
Basic block diagram of a communication system:
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Block diagram of communication
system
Source: analog or digital
Transmitter: transducer, amplifier, modulator,
oscillator, power amp., antenna
Channel: e.g. cable, optical fibre, free space
Receiver: antenna, amplifier, demodulator,
oscillator, power amplifier, transducer
Recipient: e.g. person, (loud) speaker, computer
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Types of information
• Voice, data, video, music, email etc.
Types of communication systems
Public Switched Telephone Network
(voice,fax,modem)
Satellite systems
Radio,TV broadcasting
Cellular phones
Computer networks (LANs, WANs, WLANs)
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Information Representation
Communication system converts information into
electrical electromagnetic/optical signals appropriate
for the transmission medium.
Analog systems convert analog message into signals
that can propagate through the channel.
Digital systems convert bits(digits, symbols) into
signals
Computers naturally generate information as characters/bits
Most information can be converted into bits
Analog signals converted to bits by sampling and quantizing
(A/D conversion)
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The basic principle and theories of
Digital communications system
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Formatting To ensure that message (source signal) in compatible with digital
processing
- To transform from source information to digital signal
Source coding - Data compression
Baseband Transfer digit to waveform that are compatible to the channel
signaling
Equalization Ideal transmission ( non distorting) transmission characteristics over
channel
Bandpass Information signal is converted to sinusoidal waveform for digital
modulation
Channel coding Signal transformation designed to improve com performance
Synchronization Synchronize transmitter and receiver
Multiplexing Multiple signal to share one medium
Spreeding which a signal (e.g. an electrical, electromagnetic, or acoustic signal)
generated with a particular bandwidth is deliberately spread in the
frequency domain resulting in a signal with a wider bandwidth
Encryption For privacy and authentication
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Basic Digital Communication
Transformations
Formatting/Source Coding
Transforms source info into digital symbols
(digitization)
Selects compatible waveforms (matching
function)
Introduces redundancy which facilitates
accurate decoding despite errors
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It is essential for reliable
communication
Modulation/Demodulation
Modulation is the process of modifying the info
signal to facilitate transmission
Demodulation reverses the process of
modulation. It involves the detection and
retrieval of the info signal
Types
Coherent: Requires a reference info for detection
Noncoherent: Does not require reference phase
information
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Basic Digital Communication
Transformations
Coding/Decoding
Translating info bits to transmitter data symbols
Techniques used to enhance info signal so that
they are less vulnerable to channel impairment
(e.g. noise, fading, jamming, interference)
Waveform Coding
Produces new waveforms with better performance
Structured Sequences
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Why digital
The ease with which digitals, compared with
analog signals are regenerated.
The shape of waveform is affected by two
mechanism
1. Distorting affect on ideal pulse
• All transmission lines and circuits have some nonideal
frequency transfer function
2. Unwanted electrical noise or other interference further
distorts the pulse waveform
Still reliably identified,
- the pulse is amplified
- Reborn / regenerated Regenerative repeaters
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Why digital
Digital circuit are less subject to distortion and
interference
Operate in one of two states
Fully on or fully off
Prevents noise and other disturbances from
accumulating in transmission
Low rates producing high signal fidelity
Error detection and correction
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Why digital
More reliable and can be produced at a lower cost
• More flexible implementation
• TDM which is more easier the FDM
• Data handles by packets
The input to a digital system is in the form of a
sequence of bits (binary or M_ary)
o Immunity to distortion and interference
o Digital communication is rugged in the sense that it is more
immune to channel noise and distortion
o Hardware is more flexible
o Digital hardware implementation is flexible and permits the
use of microprocessors, mini-processors, digital switching and
VLSI
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Why digital
Shorter design and production cycle
Low cost
The use of LSI and VLSI in the design of
components and systems have resulted in lower
cost
Easier and more efficient to multiplex several digital
signals
Digital multiplexing techniques – Time & Code
Division Multiple Access - are easier to implement
than analog techniques such as Frequency Division
Multiple Access
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Why digital
Using digital techniques, it is possible to
combine both format for transmission through a
common medium. Can combine different signal
types – data, voice, text, etc.
Data communication in computers is digital in
nature whereas voice communication between
people is analog in nature
The two types of communication are difficult to
combine over the same medium in the analog
domain.
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Why digital
Encryption and privacy techniques are easier to
implement
Better overall performance
Digital communication is inherently more efficient
than analog in realizing the exchange of SNR for
bandwidth
Digital signals can be coded to yield extremely low
rates and high fidelity as well as privacy
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Disadvantages
Requires reliable “synchronization”
Requires A/D conversions at high rate
Requires larger bandwidth
Nongraceful degradation
Performance Criteria
Probability of error or Bit Error Rate
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Goals in Communication System
Design
To maximize transmission rate, R
To maximize system utilization, U
To minimize bit error rate, P e
To minimize required systems bandwidth, W
To minimize system complexity, C x
To minimize required power, E b /N o
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What is Digital Transmission ?
• Digital is a data technology that uses discrete
(discontinuous) values.
• Digital Transmission deals with the transmission of
digital data in a reliable and efficient manner.
Simplified Data Communications
Model
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Frequency, Spectrum and
Bandwidth
Time domain concepts
• Continuous signal
- Varies in a smooth way over time
• Discrete signal
- Maintains a constant level then changes to another constant
level
• Periodic signal
- Pattern repeated over time
• Aperiodic signal
- Pattern not repeated over time
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Continuous & Discrete Signals
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Periodic
Signals
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Various Sine Waves
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Wavelength
Distance occupied by one cycle
Distance between two points of corresponding
phase in two consecutive cycles
Symbol = (m/s)
Assuming signal velocity v
= v/f
f = v
c = 3*108 ms-1 (speed of light in free space)
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Frequency Domain Concepts
◊ Signal usually made up of many frequencies
◊ Components are sine waves
◊ Can be shown (Fourier analysis) that any signal
is made up of component sine waves
◊ Can plot frequency domain functions
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Addition of
Frequency
Components
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Frequency
Domain
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Spectrum & Bandwidth
◊ Spectrum
- range of frequencies contained in signal
◊ Absolute bandwidth
- width of spectrum
◊ Effective bandwidth
- Often just bandwidth
- Narrow band of frequencies containing most of the
energy
◊ DC Component
- Component of zero frequency
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Signal with DC Component
Non-zero
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Data Rate and Bandwidth
Any transmission system has a limited band of
frequencies
This limits the data rate that can be carried
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Analog & Digital Data Transmission
Data
- Entities that convey meaning
Signals
- Electric or electromagnetic representations of data
Transmission
- Communication of data by propagation and
processing of signals
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Data
Analog
- Continuous values within some interval
- e.g. sound, video
Digital
- Discrete values
- e.g. text, integers
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Acoustic Spectrum (Analog)
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Signals
Means by which data are propagated
Analog
- Continuously variable
Various media such as wire, fiber optic, space
Speech bandwidth 100Hz to 7kHz
- Telephone bandwidth 300Hz to 3400Hz
- Video bandwidth 4MHz
Digital
- Use two DC components
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Data and Signals
Usually use digital signals for digital data and
analog signals for analog data
Can use analog signal to carry digital data
- Modem
Can use digital signal to carry analog data
- Compact Disc audio
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Analog Signals Carrying Analog
and Digital Data
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Digital Signals Carrying Analog
and Digital Data
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Analog Transmission
Analog signal transmitted without regard to
content
May be analog or digital data
Attenuated over distance
Use amplifiers to boost signal
Also amplifies noise
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Digital Transmission
Concerned with content
Integrity endangered by noise, attenuation etc.
Regenerative Repeaters used
Repeater receives signal, Extracts bit pattern
and Retransmits
Attenuation is overcome
Noise is not amplified
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Transmission Impairments
Signal received may differ from signal
transmitted
Analog - degradation of signal quality
Digital - bit errors
Caused by
- Attenuation and attenuation distortion
- Delay distortion
- Noise
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Attenuation
Signal strength falls off with distance
Depends on medium
Received signal strength:
- must be enough to be detected
- must be sufficiently higher than noise to be received
without error
Attenuation is an increasing function of
frequency
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Delay Distortion
Only in guided media
Propagation velocity varies with frequency
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Noise (1)
Additional signals inserted between transmitter
and receiver
Thermal
- Due to thermal agitation of electrons
- Uniformly distributed
- White noise
Intermodulation
- Signals that are the sum and difference of original
frequencies sharing a medium
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Noise (2)
Crosstalk
- Signal from one line is picked up by another
Impulse
- Irregular pulses or spikes
- e.g. External electromagnetic interference
- Short duration
- High amplitude
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Channel Capacity
Data rate
- In bits per second
- Rate at which data can be communicated
Bandwidth
- In cycles per second or Hertz
- Constrained by transmitter and medium
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Digital Transmission Impairments
Data can be corrupted during transmission.
Some applications require that errors be
detected and corrected.
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Digital Bit Error
When digital data is transmitted over a digital
link, errors in transmission can occur due to
external factors such as noise.
In many cases it is necessary to be able to
detect errors and correct them.
This requires special codes known as error
protecting codes.
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Note:
Data can be corrupted during
transmission. For reliable
communication, errors must be detected
and corrected.
SECTION REVIEW
Draw and label the basic digital communication transformation block
diagram. Briefly explain the function of each block.
List four advantages and disadvantages of digital signals
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Types of Error
Single Bit Error
Burst Error
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Note:
In a single-bit error, only one bit in the
data unit has changed.
Single-Bit Error
Single-Bit Error
The figure shows the effects of a single-bit error
on data unit.
Single-bit errors are the least likely type of error
in serial data transmission.
To understanding why, imagine a sender sends
data at 1 Mbps.
This means that each bit lasts only 1/1,000,000
s or 1µs.
For single-bit error to occur, the noise must
have a duration of only 1µs, which is very rare;
since noise normally lasts much longer than this.
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However, a single-bits error can happen if we
are sending data using parallel transmission. For
example, if eight wires are used to send all 8
bits of 1 byte at the same time and one of the
wires is noisy, one bit can be corrupted in each
byte.
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Note:
A burst error means that 2 or more bits
in the data unit have changed.
Burst Error
Burst Error
The figure show the effects of a burst error on a
data unit. In this case, 0100010001000011 was
sent, but 0101110101000011 was received.
Note that a burst error does not necessarily
mean that errors occurs in consecutive bits. The
length of the burst is measured from the first
corrupted bit to the last corrupted bit. Some bits
in between may not have been corrupted.
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Burst error is most likely to occur in serial
transmission.
The duration of noise is normally longer than the
duration of one bit ,which means that noise
affects data, it effects a set of bits.
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Section Review
Briefly discuss the function of error protecting
codes in digital communication system.
Specify two types of error. Give example
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Detection
Error detection uses the concept of
redundancy, which means adding extra
bits for detecting errors at the
destination.
Redundancy
Even Parity Concept
In parity check, a parity bit is added to
every data unit so that the total number
of 1s is even
(or odd for odd-parity).
Example 1
Suppose the sender wants to send the word world. In
ASCII, the five characters are coded as
1110111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100
The following shows the actual bits sent
Example 2
Now suppose the word world in Example 1 is received by
the receiver without being corrupted in transmission.
11101110 11011110 11100100 11011000
11001001
Example 3
Now suppose the word world in Example 1 is corrupted
during transmission.
11111110 11011110 11101100 11011000
11001001
Simple parity check can detect all
single-bit errors. It can detect burst
errors only if the total number of errors
in each data unit is odd.
Two Dimensional Parity
Example 4
Suppose the following block is sent:
10101001 00111001 11011101 11100111
10101010
However, it is hit by a burst noise of length 8, and some
bits are corrupted.
In two-dimensional parity check, a
block of bits is divided into rows and a
redundant row of bits is added to the
whole block.
A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is an error-detecting code commonly
used in digital networks and storage devices to detect accidental changes
to raw data
• Blocks of data entering these systems get a short check value
attached, based on the remainder of a polynomial division of their
contents;
• on retrieval the calculation is repeated, and corrective action can be
taken against presumed data corruption if the check values do not
match.
• CRCs are so called because the check (data verification) value is a
redundancy (it expands the message without adding information and
the algorithm is based on cyclic codes.
• CRCs are popular because they are simple to implement in binary
hardware, easy to analyze mathematically, and particularly good at
detecting common errors caused by noise in transmission channels.
CRC Generator and Checker
Binary Division in a CRC Generator
Binary Division in a CRC Generator
Polynomial
Polynomial Representing a
Divisor
Polynomial
Table 7.1 Standard polynomials
Name Polynomial Application
CRC-8 x8 + x 2 + x + 1 ATM header
CRC-10 x10 + x9 + x5 + x4 + x 2 + 1 ATM AAL
ITU-16 x16 + x12 + x5 + 1 HDLC
x32 + x26 + x23 + x22 + x16 + x12 + x11 +
ITU-32 LANs
x10 + x8 + x7 + x5 + x4 + x2 + x + 1
Example 5
It is obvious that we cannot choose x (binary 10) or x2 + x
(binary 110) as the polynomial because both are divisible
by x. However, we can choose x + 1 (binary 11) because
it is not divisible by x, but is divisible by x + 1. We can
also choose x2 + 1 (binary 101) because it is divisible by
x + 1 (binary division).
Example 6
The CRC12
x12 + x11 + x3 + x + 1
which has a degree of 12, will detect all burst errors
affecting an odd number of bits, will detect all burst
errors with a length less than or equal to 12, and will
detect, 99.97 percent of the time, burst errors with a
length of 12 or more.
Checksum
The third error detection method.
Like the parity checks and CRC, checksum is
based on the concepts of redundancy.
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checksum
A checksum or hash sum is a fixed-size datum
computed from an arbitrary block of digital data
for the purpose of detecting accidental errors
that may have been introduced during its
transmission or storage.
The integrity of the data can be checked at any
later time by recomputing the checksum and
comparing it with the stored one. If the
checksums match, the data was likely not
accidentally altered.
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Checksum
Data Unit and Checksum
The sender follows these steps:
• The unit is divided into k sections, each of n bits.
• All sections are added using one’s complement to
get the sum.
• The sum is complemented and becomes the
checksum.
• The checksum is sent with the data.
The receiver follows these steps:
• The unit is divided into k sections, each of n bits.
• All sections are added using one’s complement to
get the sum.
• The sum is complemented.
• If the result is zero, the data are accepted:
otherwise, rejected.
Example 7
Suppose the following block of 16 bits is to be sent using a
checksum of 8 bits.
10101001 00111001
Example 8
Now suppose the receiver receives the pattern sent in Example 7
and there is no error.
10101001 00111001 00011101
Further Reading
Lathi, B.P (2001). Modern Digital and Analog
Communications Systems, (3rd ed.). New York:
Oxford University Press.
Web site
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