Data and Computer

Communications
Chapter 5 – Signal Encoding
Techniques

Ninth Edition
by William Stallings

Data and Computer Communications, Ninth

Edition by William Stallings, (c) Pearson
Education - Prentice Hall, 2011
 Signal Encoding Techniques

Even the natives have difficulty mastering this

peculiar vocabulary.

—The Golden Bough,

Sir James George Frazer
Signal Encoding Techniques
 Digital Data, Digital Signal
 digital signal

discrete, discontinuous voltage pulses

each pulse is a signal element

binary data encoded into signal elements
 Terminology
 unipolar – all signal elements have the same sign
 polar – one logic state represented by positive
voltage and the other by negative voltage
 data rate – rate of data ( R ) transmission in bits
per second
 duration or length of a bit – time taken for
transmitter to emit the bit (1/R)
 modulation rate – rate at which the signal level
changes, measured in baud = signal elements per
second.
 mark and space – binary 1 and binary 0
Key Data Transmission Terms

Term Units Definition

Data element Bits A single binary one or zero
Data rate Bits per second (bps) The rate at which data
elements are transmitted
Signal element Digital: a voltage pulse of That part of a signal that
constant amplitude occupies the shortest interval
Analog: a pulse of constant of a signaling code
frequency, phase, and
amplitude
Signaling rate or Signal elements per second The rate at which signal
modulation rate (baud) elements are transmitted
 Interpreting Signals

need to know:

• timing of bits - when they start and end

• signal levels

factors affecting signal interpretation:

• signal to noise ratio

• data rate
• bandwidth
• encoding scheme
Nonreturn to Zero-Level (NRZ-L)
0 = high level
1 = low level

Nonreturn to Zero Inverted (NRZI)

0 = no transition at beginning of interval (one bit time)
1 = transition at beginning of interval

Bipolar-AMI
0 = no line signal
1 = positive or negative level, alternating for successive ones
Digital
Pseudoternary
0 = positive or negative level, alternating for successive zeros
1 = no line signal
Signal
Manchester Encoding
0 = transition from high to low in middle of interval
1 = transition from low to high in middle of interval
Formats
Differential Manchester
Always a transition in middle of interval
0 = transition at beginning of interval
1 = no transition at beginning of interval

B8ZS
Same as bipolar AMI, except that any string of eight zeros is replaced by a string with two
code violations

HDB3
Same as bipolar AMI, except that any string of four zeros is replaced by a string with one
code violation
 Encoding Schemes
signal spectrum
• good signal design clocking
• need to synchronize
should concentrate
transmitter and
the transmitted
receiver either with
power in the middle
an external clock or
of the transmission
sync mechanism
bandwidth signal interference and
noise immunity
error detection • certain codes
• responsibility of a
perform better in the
layer of logic above
presence of noise
the signaling level • cost and complexity
that is known as data • the higher the
link control
signaling rate the
greater the cost
 Nonreturn to Zero-Level
(NRZ-L)
 easiest way to transmit digital signals is to
use two different voltages for 0 and 1 bits
 voltage constant during bit interval

no transition (no return to zero voltage)

absence of voltage for 0, constant positive
voltage for 1

more often, a negative voltage represents one
value and a positive voltage represents the
other(NRZ-L)
Encoding Schemes
 Non-return to Zero Inverted
(NRZI)
 Non-return to zero, invert on ones
 constant voltage pulse for duration of bit
 data encoded as presence or absence of signal
transition at beginning of bit time

transition (low to high or high to low) denotes binary 1

no transition denotes binary 0
 example of differential encoding

data represented by changes rather than levels

more reliable to detect a transition in the presence of
noise than to compare a value to a threshold

easy to lose sense of polarity
 NRZ Pros & Cons
Pros  used for magnetic
• easy to recording
engineer
• make
efficient use
of bandwidth  not often used for
signal transmission
Cons
• presence of a
dc component
• lack of
synchronizatio
n capability
 Multilevel Binary
Bipolar-AMI
 use more than two signal levels
 Bipolar-AMI

binary 0 represented by no line signal

binary 1 represented by positive or
negative pulse

binary 1 pulses alternate in polarity

no loss of sync if a long string of 1s occurs

no net dc component

lower bandwidth

easy error detection
 Multilevel Binary
Pseudoternary
 binary 1 represented by absence of line
signal
 binary 0 represented by alternating
positive and negative pulses
 no advantage or disadvantage over
bipolar-AMI and each is the basis of some
applications
 Multilevel Binary Issues
 synchronization with long runs of 0’s or 1’s

can insert additional bits that force transitions

scramble data
 not as efficient as NRZ

each signal element only represents one bit
• receiver distinguishes between three levels: +A, -A, 0
 a 3 level system could represent log23 = 1.58 bits

requires approximately 3dB more signal power for
same probability of bit error
Theoretical Bit Error Rate
 Manchester Encoding
 transition in middle of each bit period
 midbit transition serves as clock and data
 low to high transition represents a 1
 high to low transition represents a 0
 used by IEEE 802.3
 Differential Manchester
Encoding
 midbit transition is only used for clocking
 transition at start of bit period representing 0
 no transition at start of bit period representing 1

this is a differential encoding scheme
 used by IEEE 802.5
Biphase Pros and Cons
Pros
• synchronization on midbit transition
(self clocking)
• has no dc component
• has error detection

Cons
• at least one transition per bit time
and may have two
• maximum modulation rate is twice
NRZ
• requires more bandwidth
Spectral Density of Various
Signal Encoding Schemes
Stream of Binary Ones
at 1Mbps
Normalized Signal Transition Rate
of Various Digital Signal Encoding
Schemes
Minimum 101010. . . Maximum
NRZ-L 0 (all 0s or 1s) 1.0 1.0
NRZI 0 (all 0s) 0.5 1.0 (all 1s)
Bipolar-AMI 0 (all 0s) 1.0 1.0
Pseudoternary 0 (all 1s) 1.0 1.0
Manchester 1.0 (1010 . . .) 1.0 2.0 (all 0s or 1s)
Differential Manchester 1.0 (all 1s) 1.5 2.0 (all 0s)

Table 5.3
 Scrambling
 use scrambling to replace sequences that would
produce constant voltage
 these filling sequences must:

produce enough transitions to sync

be recognized by receiver & replaced with original

be same length as original
 design goals

have no dc component

have no long sequences of zero level line signal

have no reduction in data rate

give error detection capability
 HDB3 Substitution Rules

Number of Bipolar Pulses (ones) since Last Substitution

Polarity of Preceding Pulse Odd Even
- 000- +00+
+ 000+ -00-

Table 5.4
B8ZS and HDB3
 Digital Data, Analog Signal

Encoding Techniques  main use is public

telephone system
Amplitude Frequency Phase shift 
has frequency range
shift shift keying keying (PK) of 300Hz to 3400Hz
keying (FSK) • phase of
(ASK) • most carrier

uses modem
• used to common signal is (modulator-
transmit form is shifted demodulator)
digital binary to
data over FSK represen
optical (BFSK) t data
fiber
Modulation Techniques
 Amplitude Shift Keying
 encode 0/1 by different carrier amplitudes

usually have one amplitude zero
 susceptible to sudden gain changes
 inefficient
 used for:

up to 1200bps on voice grade lines

very high speeds over optical fiber
 Binary Frequency Shift
Keying
 two binary values represented by two different
frequencies (near carrier)
 less susceptible to error than ASK
 used for:

up to 1200bps on voice grade lines

high frequency radio

even higher frequency on LANs using coaxial cable
 Multiple FSK
 each signalling element represents more
than one bit
 more than two frequencies used
 more bandwidth efficient
 more prone to error
FSK Transmission
 Phase Shift Keying
 phase of carrier signal is shifted to
represent data
 binary PSK

two phases represent two binary digits
 differential PSK

phase shifted relative to previous transmission
rather than some reference signal
DPSK
Bandwidth Efficiency for Digital-
to-Analog Encoding Schemes
r=0 r = 0.5 r=1
ASK 1.0 0.67 0.5
Multilevel FSK
M = 4, L = 2 0.5 0.33 0.25
M = 8, L = 3 0.375 0.25 0.1875
M = 16, L = 4 0.25 0.167 0.125
M = 32, L = 5 0.156 0.104 0.078
PSK 1.0 0.67 0.5
Multilevel PSK
M = 4, L = 2 2.00 1.33 1.00
M = 8, L = 3 3.00 2.00 1.50
M = 16, L = 4 4.00 2.67 2.00
M = 32, L = 5 5.00 3.33 2.50
 Quadrature PSK
 moreefficient use if each signal element
represents more than one bit

uses phase shifts separated by multiples of
/2 (90o)

each element represents two bits

split input data stream in two and modulate
onto carrier and phase shifted carrier
 canuse 8 phase angles and more than
one amplitude

9600bps modem uses 12 angles, four of
which have two amplitudes
QPSK and OQPSK
Modulators
QPSK
 Performance of Digital to
Analog Modulation Schemes
ASK/PSK bandwidth directly relates to bit rate bit error rate of PSK and QPSK are about 3dB superior to ASK and FSK

multilevel PSK gives significant improvements for MFSK and MPSK have tradeoff between bandwidth efficiency and error performance in
bandw prese
idth nce of
noise:
Bit Error Rates for Multilevel
FSK and PSK
 Quadrature Amplitude
Modulation
 QAM used on asymmetric digital subscriber line
(ADSL) and some wireless
 combination of ASK and PSK
 logical extension of QPSK
 send two different signals simultaneously on
same carrier frequency

use two copies of carrier, one shifted 90°

each carrier is ASK modulated

two independent signals over same medium

demodulate and combine for original binary output
QAM Modulator
 QAM Variants
 two level ASK

each of two streams in one of two states

four state system

essentially QPSK
 four level ASK

combined stream in one of 16 states
 have 64 and 256 state systems
 improved data rate for given bandwidth

increased potential error rate
 Analog Data, Digital Signal
 digitization is conversion of analog data
into digital data which can then:

be transmitted using NRZ-L

be transmitted using code other than NRZ-L

be converted to analog signal
 analog to digital conversion done using a
codec

pulse code modulation

delta modulation
Digitizing Analog Data
Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)
 sampling theorem:

“If a signal is sampled at regular intervals at a
rate higher than twice the highest signal
frequency, the samples contain all information
in original signal”

eg. 4000Hz voice data, requires 8000 sample
per second
 strictly have analog samples

Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM)
 assign each a digital value
PCM Example
PCM Block Diagram
Non-Linear Coding
Typical Companding
Functions
 Delta Modulation (DM)
 analog input is approximated by a
staircase function

can move up or down one level () at each
sample interval
 has binary behavior

function only moves up or down at each
sample interval

hence can encode each sample as single bit

1 for up or 0 for down
Delta Modulation Example
Delta Modulation Operation
PCM verses Delta Modulation
 DM has simplicity compared to PCM but
has worse SNR
 issue of bandwidth used

for good voice reproduction with PCM:
• want 128 levels (7 bit) & voice bandwidth 4khz
• need 8000 x 7 = 56kbps
 data compression can improve on this
 still growing demand for digital signals

use of repeaters, TDM, efficient switching
 PCM preferred to DM for analog signals
 Analog Data, Analog Signals
 modulate carrier frequency with analog data
 why modulate analog signals?

higher frequency can give more efficient transmission

permits frequency division multiplexing
 types of modulation:

Amplitude

Frequency

Phase
 Analog
Modulation
Techniques
 Amplitude Modulation
 Frequency Modulation
 Phase Modulation
 Summary
 Signal encoding techniques

digital data, digital signal
• NRZ, multilevel binary, biphase, modulation rate,
scrambling techniques

analog data, digital signal
• PCM, DM

digital data, analog signal
• ASK, FSK, BFSK, PSK

analog data, analog signal
• AM, FM, PM