EE-324 Communication Systems

Lecture 1: Introduction to
Communication Systems

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 Course Textbook(s)
1. B. P. Lathi,
"Modern Digital and Analog Communication
Systems", 4th Edition, Oxford University
Press, 2009.

2. Simon Haykin,
"Communication Systems", Latest Edition,
John Wiley & Sons.
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 Introduction to Communication
Systems
• Study of communication systems can be divided into
two areas:
– How communication systems work.
– How to deal with noise (unwanted signal).
• First area needs familiarity with Signal Analysis (Signal
and Systems),
• Second area needs knowledge of Probability theory
and random processes
• This course concerns with communication of electrical
signals. In the past, it was done manually by runners,
carrier pigeons, drum beats, and torches.
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 History: Communication Systems
• Thousands of years before the Common Era
(B.C.E.) drums were used for messaging.
• Trojan -- signals of torches
• Alexander the Great, Hannibal and Caesar
used running carriers for transmission of their
commends.
• Roman used smoke signals for messaging.
• Genghis Khan used carrier pigeons to spread
the reports of his victories.
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 History: Communication Systems
• 16th century, Sir William Penn developed a comm.
Code by using flag or light.
• 1835, Samuel Morse developed communication code
( points and dashes)
• 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented telephone
• 1861, Maxwell proposed mathematical theory of
Electro-magnetic (EM) waves

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 History: Communication Systems
• 1887, Hertz demonstrated the existence of EM
waves
• 1895-1898, Marconi built radio telegraphy
• 1921, First analog land mobile by police
department in Detroit and London.
• 1933, FM was invented, which made possible
high quality and long range radio communication.
• 1964, Improved mobile telephone service (IMTS)
was developed by AT&T.

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 History: Communication Systems
• Second Generation (2G): 1990’s Cellular has enjoyed
exponential with over 200 million users worldwide today ..
– 1990 Global System Mobile (GSM) is introduced in 800-900 MHz
band.
• 2.5 Generation- :1998 mobile wireless data: wireless data
service + internet “micro-browser” is introduced.
• 3rd Generation- 2000: IMT-2000 (International Mobile
Telecom.) proposals for a world-wide 3rd generation
standard was submitted (384KBPS to 2MBPS).
• 4th generation – may be to use W-CDMA-2000 or OFDM
(orthogonal frequency division multiplexer), TV, Satellite,
LAN, and 100 Mbps bandwidth

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 Introduction
• The purpose of Communication System is to transport
an information signal from a source to a user
destination via a communication channel (transmission
system).
• Communication system can be analog or digital
• Analog communication:
– information signal is continuously varying in both
amplitude and time.
• Digital communication:
– information signal is processed so that it can be
represented by a sequence of discrete message (e.g., 0 or
1).

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 Communication Model
Transmitter
Information Source Channel
Source Transducer Encoder

Noise, Interference Comm.

and distortion Channel

Destination User Channel

(User) Transducer Decoder
Receiver
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 Communication Model
• Information source:
– generates the data to be transmitted.
– Human, telephones, and computers
• Transmitter:
– transforms and encodes the information in such a way
to produce electromagnetic signals, that can be
transmitted over a communication Channel
– For example, MODEM takes in digital bit streams from
computer and converts into analog signal that can be
transmitted by the telephone networks

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 Communication Model
• Communication Channel:
– a transmission line or complex network connecting
source and destination
– (e.g., wire, Coaxial cable
optical fiber, or radio link)
• Receiver
– accepts the signal from the channel and converts it
into a form that can be handled by the destination
user or device
• Destination
– takes the incoming data from the receiver.

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 Examples of Communication Systems

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 Noise in Communication System
• Noise is unwanted signal and can be classified
into:
– External noise
• interference, human-made noise, fluorescent lights, or
natural noise (electrical storms, solar, and radiation).
– Internal noise
• thermal motion of electrons in conductors, random
emission, diffusion or recombination of charged
carriers in electronics devices.

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 Signal and Noise

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 Analog and Digital Messages
• Analog
– characterized by data whose values varies over a continuous range.
– Human speech, temperature, atmospheric pressure etc.
• Digital
– constructed with a finite number of symbols.
– For example, printed English language consists of 26 letters, 10
numbers, space, comma etc. Thus, a text is a digital message
constructed from symbols.

Analog

Digital
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 Analog to Digital Conversion

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 Analog to Digital Conversion

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 Modulation
• Baseband signals are not suitable for direct transmission
• Such signals are modified to facilitate transmission.
• This modification process is known as Modulation.
– where baseband signal modifies some parameter of a high-frequency carrier
signal.
– A carrier is a sinusoid of high frequency, and one of its parameters-such as
amplitude, frequency, or phase-is varied in proportion to the baseband signal
m(t).
• Modulation can be
– Amplitude modulation (AM)
• In AM, the carrier amplitude varies in proportion to m(t)
– Frequency modulation (FM)
• In FM, the carrier frequency varies in proportion m(t)
– Phase modulation (PM).
• In PM, the carrier phase varies in proportion m(t)
• At the receiver, the modulated signal is passed through a reverse process
called Demodulation to reconstruct the baseband signal.

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 AM and FM

Amplitude modulation (AM)

the carrier amplitude varies in
proportion to m(t)

Frequency modulation (FM)

the carrier frequency varies in
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proportion m(t) 19
 AM, FM, and PM

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 Reading
• Only presentation slides of Lecture 1

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