Digital Communication I:

Modulation and Coding Course

Term 3 - 2009

Lecture 1
Course information

„ Scope of the course

„ Digital Communication systems
„ Practical information
„ Course material
„ Lay-out of the course in terms of Lectures, Tutorials, Lab assignment,
Exam
„ Staff
„ More detailed information on the lab
„ Lay-out of the course indicating which parts of the course are
easier/more difficult.
„ More information on:
http://www.signal.uu.se/Courses/CourseDirs/ModDemKod/2009/main.html

„ Introduction to digital communication systems

Lecture 1 2
 Scope of the course
„ Communications is a process by which information is
exchanged between individuals through a common system
of symbols, signs, or behaviour
“It is about communication between people; the rest is
technology”

„ Communication systems are reliable, economical and

efficient means of communications
„ Public switched telephone network (PSTN), mobile telephone
communication (GSM, 3G, 4G...), broadcast radio or television,
navigation systems, ...

„ The course is aiming at introducing fundamental issues

required for understanding and designing a (digital)
communication system
Lecture 1 3
Scope of the course ...
„ Example of a (digital) communication system:
Cellular wireless communication systems (WLAN, WSN…)
BS

Base Station (BS)

UE UE

UE
User Equipment (UE)

Lecture 1 4
 Scope of the course ...
General structure of a communication system
Noise
Transmitted Received Received
Info. signal signal info.
SOURCE
Source Transmitter Channel Receiver User

Transmitter

Source Channel
Formatter Modulator
encoder encoder

Receiver

Source Channel
Formatter Demodulator
decoder decoder

Lecture 1 5
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-off between various parameters

Lecture 1 6
Practical information
„ 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
„ “Introduction to digital communications”, by Michael B. Pursley,
Pearson, Prentice Hall, 2005, International edition, ISBN: 0-13-
123392-0
„ ”Digital communications”, by Ian A. Glover and Peter M. Grant,
Pearson, Prentice Hall, 2004, 2nd edition, ISBN: 0-13-089399-4
„ Material accessible from course homepage:
„ News
„ Lecture slides (.ppt, pdf)‫‏‬
„ Laboratory syllabus (Lab. PM)‫‏‬
„ Set of exercises and formulae
„ Old exams

Lecture 1 7
Schedule & Requirements
„ 13 lectures:
„ from week 4 to week 11
„ I expect everyone to read the book. Please do so! It is a well written book and
it will pay off to go through the material.
„ During the lectures I will guide you through the material and emphasize parts
I deem important.
„ 10 tutorials:
„ week 5 to week 11
„ The tutorials will cover important examples. Please, try to browse through the
material in advance.
„ 1 mandatory laboratory work:
„ Week 10-11 (?). Book laboratory time by contacting Daniel Aronsson
„ Final written exam on 16th of March 2009
„ To pass the course you need to
„ pass the lab (no grade given) and
„ pass the exam with minimum grade 3.

Lecture 1 8
Staff
„ Course responsible and lecturer:
„ Anders Ahlén
„ Office: 72140, Hus 7 (våning 2), Ångström
„ Phone: 018-471 3076
„ Email: anders.ahlen@signal.uu.se
„ Lab responsible
„ Daniel Aronsson
„ Office: 72413, Hus 7 (våning 2), Ångström
„ Phone: 018-471 3071
„ Email: daniel.aronsson@signal.uu.se

Lecture 1 9
Laboratory work (compulsory)‫‏‬
„ Aim: Study a digital communication system
either on radio channels or audio channels and
examine the quality of the received signal
„ You will work in groups of 2-3 students.
„ Each group will:
„ Download all files and information from the course
homepage.
„ Prepare themselves carefully according to the lab
instructions. If you have any questions, contact
Daniel.
Make sure to be well prepared.
„ Choose one time-slot (2 hours) for performing the
laboration under Daniel's supervision.
„ Perform the lab at the allocated time.

Lecture 1 10
Course Lay-out
„ Lec1: Introduction. Important concepts to comprehend. Difficulty: 2. Importance: 2.
„ Lec2: Formatting and transmission of baseband signals. (Sampling, Quantization,
baseband modulation). Difficulty: 6. Importance: 7.
„ Lec3: Receiver structure (demodulation, detection, matched filter receiver). Diff.: 5.
Imp: 5.
„ Lec4: Receiver structure (detection, signal space). Diff: 4. Imp.=:4
„ Lec5: Signal detection; Probability of symbol errors. Diff: 7. Imp: 8.
„ Lec6: ISI, Nyquist theorem. Diff: 6. Imp: 6.
„ Lec7: Modulation schemes; Coherent and non-coherent detection. Diff: 8. Imp: 9.
„ Lec8: Comparing different modulation schemes; Calculating symbol errors. Diff: 7.
Imp: 9.
„ Lec9: Channel coding; Linear block codes. Diff: 3. Imp:7.
„ Lec10: Convolutional codes. Diff: 2. Imp:8.
„ Lec11: State and Trellis diagrams; Viterbi algorithm. Diff: 2. Imp: 9.
„ Lec12: Properties of convolutional codes; interleaving; concatenated codes. Diff: 2.
Imp: 5.
„ Lec13:

Lecture 1 11
Helpful hints for the course
„ It is good custom to print out slides for each lecture and bring them
along.
„ Take extra notes on these print-outs (I may complement the slides
with black board notes and examples). Thus, make sure not to
squeeze in too many slides on each A4 when printing the slides.
„ Try to browse through the slides before each lecture. This will really
help in picking up concepts quicker.
„ Try to attend the lectures/tutorials. Otherwise, ask a friend for extra
notes.
„ I will frequently try to repeat important concepts and difficult
sections during the subsequent lecture(s), so that you will have
several chances to make sure that you have understood the
concepts/underlying ideas.
„ Download old exams early during the course, so that you get an
idea of level of difficulty and what is important.
„ Don't forget to prepare yourself before you take the lab!

Lecture 1 12
Today, we are going to talk about:
„ What are the features of a digital communication
system?
„ Why “digital” instead of “analog”?
„ What do we need to know before taking off
toward designing a DCS?
„ Classification of signals
„ Random processes
„ Autocorrelation
„ Power and energy spectral densities
„ Noise in communication systems
„ Signal transmission through linear systems
„ Bandwidth of a signal

Lecture 1 13
Digital communication system
„ Important features of a DCS:
„ The transmitter sends a waveform from a finite set
of possible waveforms during a limited time

„ The channel distorts, attenuates the transmitted

signal and adds noise to it.

„ The receiver decides which waveform was

transmitted given the noisy received signal

„ The probability of an erroneous decision is an

important measure for the system performance

Lecture 1 14
 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 15
Classification of signals
„ Deterministic and random signals
„ Deterministic signal: No uncertainty with respect to
the signal value at any time.

„ Random signal: Some degree of uncertainty in

signal values before it actually occurs.
„ Thermal noise in electronic circuits due to the random
movement of electrons
„ Reflection of radio waves from different layers of
ionosphere
„ Interference

Lecture 1 16
Classification of signals …
„ Periodic and non-periodic signals

A periodic signal A non-periodic signal

„ Analog and discrete signals

A discrete signal

Analog signals
Lecture 1 17
Classification of signals ..
„ Energy and power signals
„ A signal is an energy signal if, and only if, it has nonzero
but finite energy for all time:

„ A signal is a power signal if, and only if, it has finite but
nonzero power for all time:

„ General rule: Periodic and random signals are power signals.

Signals that are both deterministic and non-periodic are energy
signals.

Lecture 1 18
Random process
„ A random process is a collection of time functions, or signals,
corresponding to various outcomes of a random experiment. For
each outcome, there exists a deterministic function, which is
called a sample function or a realization.

Random
variables
Real number

Sample functions
or realizations
(deterministic
function)
time (t)

Lecture 1 19
Random process …
„ Strictly stationary: If none of the statistics of the random process are
affected by a shift in the time origin.

„ Wide sense stationary (WSS): If the mean and autocorrelation functions do

not change with a shift in the origin time.

„ Cyclostationary: If the mean and autocorrelation functions are periodic in

time.

„ Ergodic process: A random process is ergodic in mean and autocorrelation,

if

and

, respectively.

Lecture 1 20
Autocorrelation
„ Autocorrelation of an energy signal

„ Autocorrelation of a power signal

„ For a periodic signal:

„ Autocorrelation of a random signal

„ For a WSS process:

Lecture 1 21
Spectral density
„ Energy signals:

„ Energy spectral density (ESD):

„ Power signals:

„ Power spectral density (PSD):

„ Random process:
„ Power spectral density (PSD):

Lecture 1 22
Properties of an autocorrelation function
„ For real-valued (and WSS in case of
random signals):
1. Autocorrelation and spectral density form a
Fourier transform pair.
2. Autocorrelation is symmetric around zero.
3. Its maximum value occurs at the origin.
4. Its value at the origin is equal to the average
power or energy.

Lecture 1 23
Noise in communication systems
„ Thermal noise is described by a zero-mean Gaussian random
process, n(t).
„ Its PSD is flat, hence, it is called white noise.

[w/Hz]

Power spectral
density

Autocorrelation
function
Probability density function

Lecture 1 24
 Signal transmission through linear systems

Input Output
Linear system
„ Deterministic signals:
„ Random signals:

„ Ideal distortion less transmission:

All the frequency components of the signal not only arrive
with an identical time delay, but also are amplified or
attenuated equally.

Lecture 1 25
Signal transmission … - cont’d
„ Ideal filters:

Non-causal!
Low-pass

Band-pass High-pass

„ Realizable filters:
RC filters Butterworth filter

Lecture 1 26
Bandwidth of signal
„ Baseband versus bandpass:

Baseband Bandpass
signal signal
Local oscillator

„ Bandwidth dilemma:
„ Bandlimited signals are not realizable!
„ Realizable signals have infinite bandwidth!

Lecture 1 27
 Bandwidth of signal …
„ Different definition of bandwidth:
a) Half-power bandwidth a) Fractional power containment bandwidth
b) Noise equivalent bandwidth b) Bounded power spectral density
c) Null-to-null bandwidth c) Absolute bandwidth

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)50dB
Lecture 1 28