DIGITAL

COMMUNICATION
Course Instructor:
Engr. Muhammad Ubaidullah

Lecture 1
Course information

2
 Scope of the course
 Learning fundamental issues in designing a
digital communication system (DCS):
 Utilized techniques
 Formatting and source coding
 Modulation (Baseband and bandpass signaling)
 Channel coding

 Equalization

 Synchronization

 Design goals
 Trade-offs between various parameters

Lecture 1 3
 Course material
 Course text book:
 “Digital communications: Fundamentals and Applications”
by Bernard Sklar,Prentice Hall, 2001,ISBN: 0-13-084788-7
 Additional recommended books:
 “Communication systems engineering”, by John G. Proakis
and Masoud Salehi, Prentice Hall, 2002, 2nd edition, ISBN:
0-13-095007-6

4
Today, we are going to talk about:
 What are the features of a Digital
communication system (DCS)?
 Why “digital” instead of “analog”?
 What do we need to know before taking off
toward designing a DCS?
 Classification of signals
 Random process
 Autocorrelation
 Power and energy spectral densities
 Noise in communication systems
 Signal transmission through linear systems
 Bandwidth of signal

Lecture 1 8
1.Information Source and Input Transducer:
The source of information can be analog or digital, e.g. analog:
audio or video signal, digital: like teletype signal.

In digital communication the signal produced by this source is

converted into digital signal which consists of 1′s and 0′s. For this
we need a source encoder.
2. Source Encoder:
In digital communication we convert the signal from source into digital
signal as mentioned above.
The point to remember is we should like to use as few binary digits as
possible to represent the signal.
In such a way this efficient representation of the source output results
in little or no redundancy. This sequence of binary digits is called
information sequence.
 Source Encoding or Data Compression:

The process of efficiently converting the output of whether

analog or digital source into a sequence of binary digits is
known as source encoding.
3. Channel Encoder:
The information sequence is passed through the channel encoder. The
purpose of the channel encoder is to introduce, in controlled manner,
some redundancy in the binary information sequence that can be used
at the receiver to overcome the effects of noise and interference
encountered in the transmission on the signal through the channel.

For example take k bits of the information sequence and map that k
bits to unique n bit sequence called code word. The amount of
redundancy introduced is measured by the ratio n/k and the reciprocal
of this ratio (k/n) is known as rate of code or code rate.
4. Digital Modulator:
The binary sequence is passed to digital modulator which in turns convert
the sequence into electric signals so that we can transmit them on channel
(we will see channel later).

The digital modulator maps the binary sequences into signal wave forms ,
for example if we represent 1 by sinx and 0 by cosx then we will transmit
sinx for 1 and cosx for 0.

5. Channel:
The communication channel is the physical medium that is used for
transmitting signals from transmitter to receiver.
In wireless system, this channel consists of atmosphere , for traditional
telephony, this channel is wired , there are optical channels, under water
acoustic channels etc.
We further discriminate this channels on the basis of their property and
characteristics, like AWGN channel etc.
6. Digital Demodulator:

The digital demodulator processes the channel corrupted transmitted

waveform and reduces the waveform to the sequence of numbers that
represents estimates of the transmitted data symbols.

7. Channel Decoder:

This sequence of numbers then passed through the channel decoder which
attempts to reconstruct the original information sequence from the
knowledge of the code used by the channel encoder and the redundancy
contained in the received data.

Note:
The average probability of a bit error at the output of the decoder is a
measure of the performance of the demodulator
Thank You
End of Lecture#1
DIGITAL
COMMUNICATION
Course Instructor:
Engr. Muhammad Ubaidullah

Lecture 2
Direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS)
• DSSS technology breaks down the transmitted stream
of data into small pieces across a frequency channel.
• A redundant bit pattern (known as a chipping code) is
generated for each bit transmitted.
• Generally, the longer the chipping code, the more
likely it is that the original transmitted data will be
properly received.
Frequency Hopped Spread Spectrum FHSS
• This is frequency hopping technique, where the users are
made to change the frequencies of usage, from one to another
in a specified time interval, hence called as frequency
hopping.
• For example, a frequency was allotted to sender 1 for a
particular period of time. Now, after a while, sender 1 hops to
the other frequency and sender 2 uses the first frequency,
which was previously used by sender 1. This is called as
frequency reuse.

• The frequencies of the data are hopped from one to another in

order to provide a secure transmission.
 Block diagram of a digital
communication system
Noise

Transmitted Received Received

Info. signal signal info.
Source Transmitter Channel Receiver User

Transmitter

Source Channel
Formatter Modulator
encoder encoder

Receiver

Source Channel
Formatter Demodulator
decoder decoder

Lecture 1 9
Digital communication system …
 Important features of a DCS:
 Transmitter sends a waveform from a finite
set of possible waveforms during a limited
time
 Channel distorts, attenuates the transmitted
signal and adds noise to it.
 Receiver decides which waveform was
transmitted from the noisy received signal
 Probability of erroneous decision is an
important measure for the system
performance

Lecture 1 10
 Why Digital?
➢Easy to regenerate the distorted signal
❑Regenerative repeaters along the transmission path
can detect a digital signal and retransmit a new, clean
(noise free) signal
➢Finite-state signal representation
❑The input to a digital system is in the form of a
sequence of bits (binary or M-ary)
➢Immunity to distortion and interference
❑Digital communication is rugged in the sense that it is
more immune to channel noise and distortion

13
➢Hardware is more flexible
➢Low 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
➢Can combine different signal types– data, voice,
text, etc.
➢Encryption and privacy techniques are easier to
implement

14
➢Good processing techniques are available for digital
signals, such as
• Data compression (or source coding)
• Error Correction (or channel coding)
• Equalization
➢Disadvantages
• Requires reliable “synchronization”
• Requires A/D conversions at high rate
• Requires larger bandwidth
➢Performance Criteria
• Probability of error or Bit Error Rate

15
16
• Each of these blocks represents one or more transformations
• Each block identifies a major signal processing function that
changes or
• transforms the signal from one signal space to another

17
 Digital versus analog
 Advantages of digital communications:
 Regenerator receiver
Original Regenerated
pulse pulse

Propagation distance

 Different kinds of digital signal are treated

identically.
Voice
Data A bit is a bit!
Media

Lecture 1 11
Thank You
End of Lecture#2