Presentation done by:

Wilhelm Dawid

Competence Area:
Noise in communication systems
 Overview:
Noise in Communication systems

Introduction:
Electronic noise is a random fluctuation in an electrical signal, a characteristic of
all electronic circuits. Noise generated by electronic devices varies greatly, as it
can be produced by several different effects. Thermal and shot noise are
unavoidable and due to the laws of nature, rather than to the device exhibiting
them, while other types depend mostly on manufacturing quality and
semiconductor defects.
 What is noise in communication system?
In communication systems , the noise is an error or undesired random disturbance of a useful information signal, introduced before or after the detector and decoder. The noise is a sum mation of unwanted or disturbing energy fr om natural and sometimes man-made sources. Noise is, however, typically distinguished from interference, (e.g. cross-talk, deliberate jamming or other unwanted electromagnetic interference from specific transmitters), for example in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) and signal-to-noise plus interference ratio (SNIR) measures. Noise is also typically distinguished from distortion, which is an unwanted alteration of the signal waveform, for example in the signal-to-noise and distortion ratio (SINAD).
 Types of noise in communication systems:

 Thermal noise (Voltage Noise,Power noise,Figurer noise,Temperature noise)

 Shot noise
 Atmospheric noise
 Flicker noise ( Pink noise )
 Impulse noise ( Burst noise )
 Avalanche noise
 White noise
 Brown /Red Noise
 Grey Noise
 Inter- Modulated noise
 Additive White Gaussian noise
 Thermal noise
Main article: Johnson–Nyquist noise
Johnson–Nyquist noise (sometimes thermal, Johnson or Nyquist noise) is unavoidable, and
generated by the random thermal motion of charge carriers (usually electrons), inside an
electrical conductor, which happens regardless of any applied voltage.
Thermal noise is approximately white, meaning that its power spectral density is nearly equal
throughout the frequency spectrum. The amplitude of the signal has very nearly a Gaussian
probability density function. A communication system affected by thermal noise is
often modelled as an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel.

Types of Thermal noise

Noise Voltage
The root mean square (RMS) voltage due to thermal noise vn, generated in a resistance R
(ohms) over bandwidth Δf (hertz), is given by;

where kB is Boltzmann's constant (joules per kelvin) and T is the resistor's absolute
Temperature (Kelvin). As the amount of thermal noise generated depends upon the
temperature of the circuit, very sensitive circuits such as preamplifiers in radio telescopes are
sometimes cooled in liquid nitrogen
to reduce the noise level.
 Noise power
Noise power is based on the thermal noise power at the input of the system, along with
system gain and noise figure:
P = kT ∆f
The noise power, P , in watts, is given by P = kT∆ f , where k is Boltzmann's constant in
joules per kelvin, T is the conductor temperature in Kelvin, and f is the bandwidth in hertz
.
Note 1: Thermal noise power, per hertz, is equal throughout the frequency spectrum,
depending only on k and T .
Note 2: For the general case, the above definition may be held to apply to charge carriers
in any type of conducting medium. Synonym Johnson noise.

 Noise figure
The noise figure is a frequently used measure of an amplifier's goodness, or its departure
from the ideal. Thus it is a figure of merit. The noise figure is the noise factor converted to
decibel notation:
NF = 10 log (F)

where
NF is the noise figure in decibels (dB)
F is the noise factor
LOG refers to the system of base-10 logarithms
 Noise temperature
The noise temperature is a means for specifying noise in terms of an equivalent
temperature.
NB! Note that the equivalent noise temperature Te is not the physical temperature of the
amplifier, But rather a theoretical construct that is an equivalent temperature that
produces that amount of noise power. The amount of noise in a given transmission
medium can be equated to thermal noise.
Thermal noise is well-studied, so it makes good sense to reuse the same equations when
possible. To this end, we can say that any amount of radiated noise can be approximated
By thermal noise with a Given effective temperature. Effective temperature is measured
in Kelvin.
Effective temperature is Frequently compared to the standard temperature, To, which is
290 Kelvin (17 °C, 62 °F) Temperature equation :
Te = (F - 1) To
 Noise Figure of Cascaded Amplifier
In a cascade amplifier the final stage sees an input signal that consists of the
original signal and noise amplified by each successive stage. Each stage in the
cascade chain amplifies signals and noise from previous stages and contributes
some noise of its own. The overall noise factor for a cascade amplifier can be
calculated from the Fris noise equation:
 Shot noise

Main article: Shot noise

Shot noise is a type of electronic noise that occurs when the finite
number of particles that carry energy (such as electrons in an
electronic circuit or photons in an optical device) is small enough to
give rise to detectable statistical fluctuations in a measurement. It is
important in electronics, telecommunications, and fundamental
physics. Bipolar transistors

where q = electron charge 1.6 x 10-17 coulombs

 Atmospheric Noise
Main article: Atmospheric noise

Perhaps the best way to become acquainted with atmospheric noise is to

listen to shortwave on a receiver which is not well equipped to receive
them. An astonishing variety of strange sounds will be heard, all tending to
interfere with the program. Most of the sounds are the result of spurious
radio waves which induce voltage in antenna. The majority of these radio
waves come from natural sources of disturbance.
They represent atmospheric noise , generally called static.
Static is caused by lightning discharges in the thunderstorms and other
natural electric disturbance occurring in the atmosphere. It originates in the
form of amplitude-modulated impulses, and because such processes are
random in nature, it is spread over most of the spectrum normally used for
broadcasting.
 Flicker noise
Main article: Flicker noise ( Pink Noise )
Flicker noise, also known as 1/f noise, is a signal or process with a frequency spectrum that falls off steadily into the higher frequencies, with a pink spectrum. It occurs in almost all electronic devices, and results from a variety of effects, though
always related to a direct current.

Impulse noise
Main article: Impulse noise ( Burst noise )
Impulse noise is a category of (acoustic) noise which includes unwanted, almost instantaneous (thus impulse-like) sharp sounds (like clicks and pops). Noises of the kind are usually caused by electromagnetic interference, scratches on the recording disks, and ill
synchronization in digital recording and communication. High levels of such a noise ( 200 + Decibels ) may damage internal organs, while 180 Decibels are enough to destroy or damage human ears. Impulse noise is non-continuous, consisting of irregular pulses or noise ‘‘
spikes’’ of short duration, broad spectral density, and relatively high pulses. Impulse noise degrades telephony ordinary only marginally, if at all. However , it may seriously degrade data error performance on data or other digital waveforms.
 Avalanche noise
Main article: Avalanche noise
Avalanche noise is the noise produced when a junction diode is operated at the onset of
avalanche breakdown, a semiconductor junction phenomenon in which carriers in a high
voltage gradient develop sufficient energy to dislodge additional carriers through
physical impact, creating ragged current flows.

White Noise
Main article: White noise

White noise is a random signal (or process) with a flat power spectral density. In other
words, the signal contains equal power within a fixed bandwidth at any center frequency.
White noise draws its name from white light in which the power spectral density of the
light is distributed over the visible band in such a way that the eye's three color receptors
(cones) are approximately equally stimulated. In statistical sense, a time series r t is called
a white noise if {rt} is a sequence of independent and identically distributed(iid) random
variables with finite mean and variance. In particular, if rt is normally distributed with
mean zero and variance σ , the series is called a Gaussian white noise.
 Brown/ Red Noise
Main article: Brownian noise
In science, Brownian noise, also known as Brown noise or red noise, is the kind of
signal noise produced by Brownian motion, hence its alternative name of random
walk noise. The term "Brown noise" comes not from the color, but after
Robert Brown, the discoverer of Brownian motion.

Grey Noise
Main article: Grey noise
Grey noise is random noise subjected to a psychoacoustic equal loudness curve
(such as an inverted A-weighting curve) over a given range of frequencies, giving
the listener the perception that it is equally loud at all frequencies.
This is in contrast to pink noise, noise which is in fact equally loud at all
frequencies but not perceived as such due to psychoacoustics.
 Inter modulation Noise
Main article: Inter modulation noise

Inter modulation (IM) noise is the result of the presence of inter

modulation products. If two signals of frequencies F1 and F2 are passed
through a nonlinear device or medium, the result will contain IM products
that are spurious frequency energy components. These components may
be inside or outside the frequency band of interest for a particular device.
IM products may be produced from harmonics of the desired signals in
question, either as products between the harmonics or between a harmonic
of one of the signals and the other basic signal or between both signals
themselves. The products result when two (or more) signals beat together
or "mix."
 Additive White Gaussian Noise
Main article: Additive white gaussian noise or AWGN

Additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) is a channel model in which the only impairment to
communication is a linear addition of wideband or white noise with a constant spectral density (expressed
as watts per hertz of bandwidth) and a Gaussian distribution of amplitude. The model does not account for
fading, frequency selectivity, interference, nonlinearity or dispersion. However, it produces simple and
tractable mathematical models which are useful for gaining insight into the underlying behavior of a
system before these other phenomena are considered.
Wideband Gaussian noise comes from many natural sources, such as the thermal vibrations of atoms in
conductors (referred to as thermal noise or Johnson-Nyquist noise), shot noise, black body radiation from
the earth and other warm objects, and from celestial sources such as the Sun.
The AWGN channel is a good model for many satellite and deep space communication links. It is not a
good model for most terrestrial links because of multipath, terrain blocking, interference, etc. However, for
terrestrial path modeling, AWGN is commonly used to simulate background noise of the channel under
study, in addition to multipath, terrain blocking, interference, ground clutter and self interference that
modern radio systems encounter in terrestrial operation.
The AWGN channel is represented by a series of outputs Yi at discrete
time event index i. Yi is the sum of the input Xi and noise, Zi, where Zi is
independent and identically-distributed and drawn from a zero-mean
normal distribution with variance n (the noise). The Zi are further
assumed to not be correlated with the Xi.

Or
 Phase noise
Main article: Phase noise

Phase noise is the frequency domain representation of rapid, short-

term, random fluctuations in the phase of a waveform, caused by
time domain instabilities ("jitter"). Generally speaking, radio frequency
engineers speak of the phase noise of an oscillator, whereas digital
system engineers work with the jitter of a clock.
Historically there have been two conflicting yet widely used definitions
for phase noise. The definition used by some authors defines phase
noise to be the Power Spectral Density (PSD) of a signal's phase, the
other one is based on the PSD of the signal itself. Both definitions yield
the same result at offset frequencies well removed from the carrier. At
close-in offsets however, characterization results strongly depends on
the chosen definition. Recently, the IEEE changed its official definition
to where Sφ is the (single-sided) spectral density of a
signal's phase fluctuations.
An ideal oscillator would generate a pure sine wave. In the frequency domain, this would be represented as a single pair of delta functions (positive and negative conjugates) at the oscillator's frequency, i.e., all the signal's power is at a single frequency. All real oscillators have
phase modulated noise components. The phase noise components spread the power of a signal to adjacent frequencies, resulting in noise sidebands. Oscillator phase noise often includes low frequency flicker noise and may include white noise.

Consider the following noise free signal:

v(t) = Acos(2πf0t).
Phase noise is added to this signal by adding a stochastic process represented by φ to the signal as follows:
v(t) = Acos(2πf0t + φ(t).)
Phase noise is a type of cyclostationary noise and is closely related to jitter. A particularly important type of phase noise is that produced by oscillators.
Phase noise (L(f)) is typically expressed in units of dBc/Hz, representing the noise power relative to the carrier contained in a 1 Hz bandwidth centered at a certain offsets from the carrier. For example, a certain signal may have a phase noise of -80 dBc/Hz at an offset of 10 kHz and -95 dBc/Hz at an offset of 100 kHz. Phase
noise can be measured and expressed as single sideband or double sideband values, but as noted earlier, the IEEE has adapted as its official definition, one-half the double sideband PSD.
 Noise Margin
Main article: Noise margin
In electrical engineering, noise margin is the amount by which a signal exceeds the
minimum amount for proper operation. It is commonly used in at least two contexts:
In communications system engineering, noise margin is the ratio by which the signal
exceeds the minimum acceptable amount. It is normally measured in decibels.
In a digital circuit, the noise margin is the amount by which the signal exceeds the
threshold for a proper '0' or '1'. For example, a digital circuit might be designed to
swing between 0.0 and 1.2 volts, with anything below 0.2 volts considered a '0', and
anything above 1.0 volts considered a '1'. Then the noise margin for a '0' would be the
amount that a signal is below 0.2 volts, and the noise margin for a '1' would be the
amount by which a signal exceeds 1.0 volt. In this case noise margins are measured as
an absolute voltage, not a ratio. Noise margins for CMOS chips is usually much greater
than TTL because the VOH min is closer to the power supply voltage and VOL max is closer
to zero.
Noise margins are generally defined so that positive values ensure proper operation,
and negative margins result in compromised operation, or perhaps outright failure.
 Signal to Noise
Main article: Signal to noise ratio
Signal-to-noise ratio (often abbreviated SNR or S/N) is a measure used in science and engineering to quantify how much a signal has been corrupted by noise. It is defined as the ratio of signal power to the noise power corrupting the signal. A ratio higher than 1:1 indicates more signal than
noise. While SNR is commonly quoted for electrical signals, it can be applied to any form of signal (such as isotope levels in an ice core or biochemical signaling between cells).
In less technical terms, signal-to-noise ratio compares the level of a desired signal (such as music) to the level of background noise. The higher the ratio, the less obtrusive the background noise is.
"Signal-to-noise ratio" is sometimes used informally to refer to the ratio of useful information to false or irrelevant data in a conversation or exchange. For example, in online discussion forums and other online communities, off-topic posts and spam are regarded as "noise" that interferes with
the "signal" of appropriate discussion.
Signal-to-noise ratio is defined as the power ratio between a signal (meaningful information) and the background noise (unwanted signal):

where P is average power. Both signal and noise power must be measured at the same or equivalent points in a system, and within the same system
bandwidth. If the signal and the noise are measured across the same impedance, then the SNR can be obtained by calculating the square of the
amplitude ratio:

where A is root mean square (RMS) amplitude (for example, RMS voltage). Because many signals have a very wide dynamic range, SNRs are often expressed
using the logarithmic decibel scale. In decibels, the SNR is defined as

which may equivalently be written using amplitude ratios as

 Signal-to-Quantization-Noise Ratio
Main article: Signal-to-Quantization-Noise Ratio

Signal-to-Quantization-Noise Ratio (SQNR or SNqR) is widely used quality measure in analyzing digitizing schemes such as PCM (pulse code modulation) and multimedia codec's. The SQNR reflects the relationship between the maximum nominal signal strength and the quantization error (also known as quantization
noise) introduced in the analog-to-digital conversion.
The SQNR formula is derived from the general SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) formula for the binary pulse-code modulated communication channel:
 Signal-to-Noise plus Interference
Main article: Signal-to-noise plus interference

Signal-to-noise plus interference ratio (SNIR) is defined as the ratio of

signal power to the combined noise and interference power:

where P is the averaged power. Values are commonly quoted in decibels.

 The Signal-to-Interference Ratio
Main article: The signal-to-interference ratio
The signal-to-interference ratio (S/I or SIR), also known as the carrier-to-interference ratio (C/I, CIR), is the quotient between the average received modulated carrier power S or C and the average received co-channel interference power I, i.e.
cross-talk, from other transmitters than the useful signal.
The CIR resembles the carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR or C/N), which is the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR or S/N) of a modulated signal before demodulation. A distinction is that interfering radio transmitters contributing to I may be controlled by
radio resource management, while N involves noise power from other sources, typically additive white gaussian noise (AWGN).
The CIR ratio is studied in interference limited systems, i.e. where I dominates over N, typically in cellular radio systems and broadcasting systems where frequency channels are reused in view to achieve high level of area coverage. The C/N is
studied in noise limited systems. If both situations can occur, the carrier-to-noise-and-interference ratio, C/(N+I) or CNIR may be studied.


Carrier-to-Noise Ratio
Main article: Carrier-to-noise ratio
In telecommunications, the carrier-to-noise ratio, often written CNR or C/N, is the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of a modulated signal.
The term is used to distinguish the CNR of the radio frequency passband signal from the SNR of an analogue base band message
signal after demodulation, for example an audio frequency analogue message signal. If this distinction is not necessary, the term SNR
is often used instead of CNR, with the same definition.
Digitally modulated signals (e.g. QAM or PSK) are basically made of two CW carriers (the I and Q components, which are out-of-phase
carriers) . In fact, the information (bits or symbols) is carried by given combinations of phase and/or amplitude of the I and Q
components. It is for this reason that, in the context of digital modulations, digitally modulated signals are usually referred to as
carriers. Therefore, the term carrier-to-noise-ratio (CNR), instead of signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) is preferred to express the signal quality
when the signal has been digitally modulated.
High C/N ratios provide good quality of reception, for example low bit error rate (BER) of a digital message signal, or high SNR of an
analogue message signal.
The carrier-to-noise ratio is defined as the ratio of the received modulated carrier signal power C to the received noise power N after
the receive filters:
 Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio
Main article: Peak signal-to-noise ratio
The phrase peak signal-to-noise ratio, often abbreviated PSNR, is an engineering term for
the ratio between the maximum possible power of a signal and the power of corrupting
noise that affects the fidelity of its representation. Because many signals have a very wide
dynamic range, PSNR is usually expressed in terms of the logarithmic decibel scale.
The PSNR is most commonly used as a measure of quality of reconstruction of lossy
compression codecs (e.g., for image compression). The signal in this case is the original data,
and the noise is the error introduced by compression. When comparing compression codecs
it is used as an approximation to human perception of reconstruction quality, therefore in
some cases one reconstruction may appear to be closer to the original than another, even
though it has a lower PSNR (a higher PSNR would normally indicate that the reconstruction
is of higher quality). One has to be extremely careful with the range of validity of this
metric; it is only conclusively valid when it is used to compare results from the same codec
(or codec type) and same content.[1][2]
It is most easily defined via the mean squared error (MSE) which for two m×n monochrome
images I and K where one of the images is considered a noisy approximation of the other is
defined as:
The PSNR is defined as: