Wireless Medium, Transmission and

Communication
Dr. Arka Prokash Mazumdar
Introduction

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Physical layer

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Transmitting vs. Receiving

Detection

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 Representation of Information
• Digital representation
– Information that occurs naturally in digital form
• data files or image files
– Analog information
• to be digitized
– Voice
– Music
– Video
• Most communications networks are digital!
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 Source Coding
• Networks are handling streams of 0’s and 1’
• Source Encoding
– Compression
• Also, remove redundancies.
• Source Decoding
– inverse of source encoding

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 Source Coding Techniques
• Huffman Code
• Two-pass Huffman Code.
• Lemple-Ziv Code
• Fano code
• Shannon Code
• Arithmetic Code

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 Channel Coding
• Channel Encoding
– According to channel conditions
– May Add redundancy for more efficient transmission
– Interleaving may be used.
• Channel decoding
– the inverse
• Opposite of Source Coding?

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Channel Coding Techniques (READ)
• Parity Check Codes
• 2-D Parity Check
• Linear Block Codes
• Cyclic Codes
• Convolutional Codes
• Turbo Codes

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 Modulation/Demodulation
• Modulation
– Maps blocks of bits to well-defined waveforms or
symbols
– Shifts transmission to the carrier frequency band
• Demodulation
– The inverse of modulation
• Demodulation vs. Detection
– Detection is to recover the modulated signal from the
“distorted noisy” received signals

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 Physical Components
• Transmitter
• Receiver
• Transmission media
– Guided: cable, twisted pair, fiber
– Unguided: wireless (radio, infrared)

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 Information Carriers

• s(t) = A sin (2 ft+ )

– Amplitude: A
– Frequency: f (where f = 1/T, T = period)
– Phase:  , angle (2 ft+ )
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Varying Sine Waves

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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
– The greater the BW,
– The higher the data rate
• Channel capacity (later)

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 Radio Spectrum

• VLF = Very Low Frequency • UHF = Ultra High Frequency

• LF = Low Frequency • SHF = Super High Frequency
• MF = Medium Frequency • EHF = Extra High Frequency
• HF = High Frequency • UV = Ultraviolet Light
• VHF = Very High Frequency
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 Guided Medium
twisted pair coax cable
optical transmission

1 Mm 10 km 100 m 1m 10 mm 100 m 1 m
300 Hz 30 kHz 3 MHz 300 MHz 30 GHz 3 THz 300 THz

VLF LF MF HF VHF UHF SHF EHF infrared UV

visible light

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 Digital or Analog ?
• Digital – concept
– Information can be analog or digital
• EM waves – analog by definition
• Analog EM signal can be made to transfer digital
data
• Thus we could (and usually do) have:
– “Digital interpretation of analog signal representing
digital representation of analog data”
010100…
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 Channel Impairments
• Signals travel through transmission media
– not perfect.
• The imperfection causes signal impairment
• The signal at the beginning of the medium
– not the same as the signal at the end of the medium
– What is sent is not what is received.
• Three causes of impairment are
– Attenuation
– Distortion
– Noise

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 Attenuation
• Loss of energy
– weaker signal
• When a signal travels through a medium
– it loses energy
– overcoming the resistance of the medium
• Amplifiers amplifies the signal
– Used to compensate for this loss of energy

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 Measurement of Attenuation
• To show the loss or gain of energy the unit
“decibel” is used.

dB = 10log10P2/P1
P1 – input (transmitted) signal
P2 – output (received) signal

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Attenuation and Amplification

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 Example
• If the received signal’s power is HALF of the
transmitted signal

• A loss of 3 dB (–3 dB)

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 Benefits of Decibel
• Use of the decibel to measure the changes in
the strength of a signal:

• When we are measuring several points

(cascading)
• Decibel (dB) numbers can be added
– or subtracted

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Cascading Measurements

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 Distortion
• The signal changes its form or shape
• Distortion occurs in composite signals
• Each frequency component has its own
propagation speed traveling through a medium
• The different components therefore arrive with
different delays at the receiver.
• Signals have different phases at the receiver
– than they did at the source

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Distortion

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 Noise
• There are different types of noise
• Thermal
– random noise of electrons in the wire creates an extra signal
• Induced
– devices act as transmitter antenna and medium as receiving
antenna.
• Crosstalk
– same as above but between two wires.
• Impulse
– Spikes that result from power lines, lighning, etc.

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Noise

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 Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)
• SNR is often used
– To measure the quality of a system
• Indicates the strength of the signal
– W.r.t. the noise power in the system.

• It is the ratio between two powers.

• It is usually given in dB and referred to as SNRdB.
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 Example
• The power of a signal is 10 mW and the power
of the noise is 1 μW.
• What are the values of SNR and SNRdB ?

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 SNR of Noise-less Channel?
• Ideal condition
• Impossible to achieve in real conditions

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Two cases of SNR

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 Channel Capacity
• Data rate (bits/sec)
– Limited by channel bandwidth and channel
environment (impairments)
– Should not count the redundancy added against
channel impairments!
• It represents how fast can bits be transmitted
reliably over a given medium
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 Factors Affecting Data Rate
• Transmitted power (energy)
• Distance between transmitter and receiver
• Noise level (including interference level)
• Bandwidth

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 Nyquist Capacity
• Nyquist BW:
– 2B, where B is the BW of a signal
• Sampling Theorem:
– Any signal whose BW is B can be completely recovered by the
sampled data at rate 2B samples per second
• Nyquist Capacity Theorem:
– For a noiseless channel with BW B, if the M level signaling is
used, the maximum transmission rate over the channel is
– C = 2B log2( M)
• Digital Comm:
– symbol rate (baud rate) vs bit rate
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 Shannon Capacity
• All channels are noisy!
• 1948 paper by Clyde Shannon:
– “A mathematical theory of communications”
– “The mathematical theory of communications”
• Signal-to-noise ratio:
SNR=signal power/noise power

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 Shannon Capacity (cont)
• Shannon Capacity Theorem:
– For a noisy channel of BW B with SNR, the maximum
transmission rate is
– C = B log2 (1+SNR)
• Capacity increases as BW or signal power
increases:
– Shout as you can!
• Some example: B=3400Hz, SNR=40dB
– C=44.8 kbps
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 Shannon Capacity (cont)
• Shannon Theorem does not give any way to reach
that capacity
• Most transmission schemes transmit much lower
rate than Shannon capacity
• Turbo codes: iterative coding schemes using
feedback information for transmission and
detection
• Sailing towards Shannon capacity!
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 Propagation Media
• Guided
– Twisted pair
– Coax cable
– Optical fiber
• Unguided
– Radio (semi-guided follow curvature of earth)
– Radio bounced off ionosphere
– Fiberless optical (wireless optical)
– Communication satellites
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Communication in the EM Spectrum

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 Modulation
• A “carrier” wave exists on the medium
– Own amplitude, frequency, phase
– Base energy pattern – no information
– Analog, of course
• A “signal” needs to be transmitted
– Time varying; analog, or digital
• The value of the signal from instant to instant is
used to change the energy pattern of the carrier
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 Injection
• Baseband
– No carrier, modulation
– State of the medium (voltage) is made to follow signal one-
to-one
– Uses “entire” medium
• Broadband
– Modulation of a carrier
– Carriers at different frequencies can carry different signals
– Sinusoidal advantages – remember harmonic analysis
– Natural frequencies of transmission
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 Transmission Impairments
• Attenuation
– Gradual loss in intensity of flux such as radio waves
• Fading: A time varying deviation of attenuation when a
modulated waveform traveling over a certain medium
– Multipath fading: caused by multipath propagation
– Shadow fading: shadowed by obstacles
• Distortion: commonly occurs to composite signals
– Different phase shifts may distort the shape of composite
signals

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 Transmission Impairments
• Interference:
– usually adds unwanted signals to the desired signal,
• co-channel interference (CCI, or crosstalk),
• inter-symbol interference (ISI),
• inter-carrier interference (ICI)
• Noise
– a random fluctuation of an analog signal, such as
• electronic, thermal, induced, impulse, quantization noises.

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 Modulation/Demodulation
• Line coding: representation of binary bits
without carrier (baseband coding)

• Modulation/demodulation: representation of
digital bits with carrier (broadband coding)

• Analog to Digital Coding

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 Line Coding
• Unipolar:
– all signal elements have same sign
• Polar:
– one logic state represented by positive voltage the other by negative voltage

Properties:
• Bit period:
– time taken for transmitter to emit the bit, the duration of a bit
• Modulation rate:
– rate of the signal level change, measured in baud (symbols per sec)
• Mark and Space:
– binary 1 and Binary 0

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 Schemes
• Non-return to Zero-Level (NRZ-L)
• Non-return to Zero Inverted (NRZI)
• Bipolar-AMI
• Pseudo-ternary
• Manchester
• Differential Manchester
• B8ZS
• HDB3
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 Self-Synchronization
• A line coding scheme embeds bit interval
information in a digital signal
• The received signal can help a receiver
synchronize its clock with the corresponding
transmitter clock.
• The line decoder can exactly retrieve the
digital data from the received signal.
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 Modulation Schemes (Binary)
• Public telephone system
– 300Hz to 3400Hz
– Use modem (modulator-demodulator)
• Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)
• Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)
• Phase Shift Keying (PSK)

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 Constellation Diagram (1/2)
• A constellation diagram: constellation points
with two bits: b0b1 Q
Quadrature Carrier

01 +1 11

Amplitue
Amplitue of Q component

-1
Phase
+1
I
In-phase Carrier

Amplitue of I component

00 -1 10

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 Constellation Diagram (2/2)
• The waveforms of BASK, BFSK, BPSK, DBPSK
1 0 1 1 0
Data stream
(Digital signal)

Carrier waveform

Amplitude-shift keying
(BASK) Modulated Signal

frequency-shift keying
(BFSK) Modulated Signal

Phase-shift keying
(BPSK) Modulated Signal

Differential Phase-shift keying

(DBPSK) Modulated Signal
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 Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK) and
Phase Shift Keying (PSK)
• The constellation diagrams of ASK and PSK.
Q Q Q
Q Q 010
01 11 011 110
+1

0 1 0 1
001 111
-1 +1
0 +1 I -1 +1 I I I I
00 10
-1
000 101

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(a) ASK (OOK): b0 (b) 2-PSK (BPSK): b0 (c) 4-PSK (QPSK): b0b1 (d) 8-PSK: b0b1b2 (e) 16-PSK: b0b1b2

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THANK YOU

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