COMSATS INSTITUTE OF

INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
EEE 352 Analog
Communication Systems
MANSOOR KHAN
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
DEPT.
ISLAMABAD CAMPUS
 Course Literature
Textbook: 
• Modern Digital and Analog Communication Systems, (3rd
Edition) by
B. P. Lathi, Oxford Printing Press

Reference Books: 
• Basics of Electronic Communications, NIIT Prentice – Hall
India
• Electronic Communication Systems, (4th Edition) by
George Kennedy and Bernard Davis
 Pre-requisites

• EEE 223 Signals and Systems

• MTH 263 Probability Theory and
Random Variables
 Marks Distribution
Theory Assessment:

Sessional I 10 Marks
Sessional II 15 Marks
Quizzes (7) 21 Marks
Assignments (3) 04 Marks
Terminal Exam 50 Marks
Total 100 Marks

Lab Work Assessment:

Labs 80 Marks
Labs Final 20 Marks
Total 100 Marks
 Attendance Policy

• At CIIT it is required by the students

to have at least 80% of attendance in
the class.
 Introduction to
Communication Systems

Lesson-1
 Communication System
• Communication is the process of exchanging
information between source and destination(sink)
• Routing of information requires a communication link -
Channel to transmit information between source and
destination.
• In past ages communication is carried over by
runners, torches, pigeons etc. Such mediums are now
obsolete in modern communication systems.
• Communication engineering deals with transmitting
information through electrical signals, i.e. information
or message such as spoken words, photographs, live
scenes and sounds are first converted to electrical
signals before being transmitted on communication
link to receiver or destination.
• Electrical communication is reliable, fast and
economical at the same time. Modern communication
has applications such as e-banking, e-shopping,
teleconferencing etc a possible reality.
 Block Schematic of Basic
Communication System

Recovered Baseband
Baseband
signal
signal

Figure: Above depiction shows subsystems of a basic communication system

in which sending receiving and processing of information is in electrical form.
Constituents of communication
systems
(i) Source (input message)
Source originates a message in non-electrical form such as
human voice, live scene, sound, data etc.
Input message can be:

• Analog – A signal whose amplitude can take on any value in

continous range i.e. analog signal amplitude can have
infinite number of values

• Digital – amplitude limited to finite set of values e.g. binary

signals have only two values a digital signal with M symbols
is called M-ary signal (M = 2 is a binary signal).
Analog Signals
 An analog signal is a smoothly and continuously varying voltage or
current. Examples are:
Sine wave
Voice
Video (TV)

Figure : Analog signals (a) Sine wave “tone.” (b) Voice.

• Digital Signals
 Digital signals change in steps or in discrete increments.
 Most digital signals use binary or two-state codes. Examples are:
 Telegraph (Morse code)
 Serial binary code (used in computers)

Figure: Digital signals (a) Telegraph (Morse code). (b) Serial binary code.
(ii) Input Transducer:
A device that converts energy from one form to another.
Convert an input signal into an electrical waveform.
Example: microphone converts human voice into electrical signal
referred to as the baseband signal or message signal.

Baseband/message
Input message
input signal
transducer

Eg. voice microphone Electrical signal

Principle: sound moves the cone and the attached coil of wire moves in the field of a magnet. The
generator effect produces a voltage which "images" the sound pressure variation - characterized as a
pressure microphone.
(iii) Transmitter (Tx):
Modifies or converts the baseband signal into format appropriate for
efficient channel of transmission.
Example: If the channel is fiber optic cable, the transmitter converts the
baseband signal into light frequency and the transmitted signal is light.
Transmitter also use to reformat/reshape the signal so that the channel
will not distort is as much - Signal Conditioning using a pre emphasizer which is a low
pass filter which limits the signal bandwidth

Modulation takes place in the transmitter. It involves static variation of

amplitude, phase or frequency of the carrier in accordance to a message
signal - Modulation is based on the principle of translating low frequency baseband signal
to a higher frequency spectrum using modulators eg AM,FM modulators if baseband signal is
analog otherwise digital modulation schemes are employed.

Transmitters may also include other subsystems for example sampler,

quantizer and coder for transmission of digitized signals.
Baseband/message transmitted signal
signal Tx
Optical signal
Baseband Modulated
signal signal Voltage Power To
Modulated
Amplifier Amplifier channel
s(t) Stage x(t) Stages Stages
Amplifier Stages

c(t)

Carrier
Oscillator

Fig: Block Schematic Representation of an Analog

Transmitter

The power of the modulated signal is amplified enough to reach the

receiver stage of communication system before transmitted on
channel.
(iv) Channel:
A medium through which the transmitter output is sent.
Divided into 2 basic groups:
•Guided Electromagnetic Wave Channel – eg. wire, coaxial cable,
optical fiber
•Electromagnetic Wave Propagation Channel – eg. Wireless broadcast
channel, mobile radio channel, satellite etc.
Introduces distortion, noise and interference – in the channel,
transmitted signal is attenuated and distorted. Signal attenuation increase
along with the length of channel.
This results in corrupted transmitted signal received by receiver, Rx

Transmitted signal Received signal

channel

Distortion
& Noise
Communication channel can be modeled as a filter that changes the characteristic
spectrum of baseband signal. This change is termed as channel distortion which is
a result of different amplitude attenuation and phase shift of each frequency
• The signal is not only distorted by channel but also
contaminated by additive noise, which is random and
unpredictable.
• Causes:
a) External – man made nearby noises, automobile ignition
radiation, florescent light, natural noise from lightning,
intergalactic radiation etc.

b)Internal - thermal motion of electrons in

conductors,diffusion or recombination of charged carriers in
semiconductor electronics etc

• Additive noise have the effect of reducing intelligibility of

recovered baseband signal and to reduce signal-to-noise
ratio.

• Proper care techniques (EMC&I practices such as

shielding) may minimize noise level to a certain extent but it
can never eliminate its effect on channel completely.
 (v) Receiver (Rx)
Receiver decodes the received signal back to message signal – i.e it
attempts to translate the received signal back into the original
message signal sent by the source.
Reprocess the signal received from the channel by undoing the signal
modification made by transmitter and the channel – RF filtering,
amplitude limiting for example in FM etc
Extract the desired signal from the received signal and convert it to
a form that suitable for the output transducer – demodulator.
Demodulation takes place in the receiver.

(vi) Output transducer

Convert electrical signals to its original waveform eg loudspeaker.

Received signal Output signal Output Output message

Rx
transducer
speaker voice 18
 Modes of
communication
Broadcasting
Involves the use of a single powerful transmitter transmit to many
receivers. Demodulation takes place in the receiver.
Information-bearing signals flow in one direction
Eg. TV and radio (Simplex)

ii. Point to point Communication

Where a communication process takes place over a link between a
single transmitter and a receiver.
Information-bearing signals flow in bidirectional, which requires the
use of a transmitter and receiver at each end of the link
Eg. Telephone (Full Duplex) and walkie talkie (Half Duplex)
 Noise Immunity of Digital
Signals
• Digital messages are transmitted using finite
set of electrical waveforms.
• For example a binary Morse Code with only
Mark and Space can be represented only two
pulses say mark is A/2 and space is –A/2
• As can be seen clearly the data can be recovered correctly as
long noise and distortion is within limits.
• Regenerative repeater stations placed along the path of
communication channel allow clean detection of transmitted
pulses.
• Thus preventing accumulation of noise along the signal path by
periodically cleaning the pulses at repeater stations.
 Noise in Analog Signals
• In contrast of digital signals waveforms in of analog
messages are important and a slight interference
in the message will cause error in received signal.
• Noise adds up along the channel and may rise
against the signal power thus decreasing the SNR
of signal transmission.
• Amplification is of little help since it will tend to
increase the noise level also along the signal
power, further deteriorating the quality of received
signal.
• Thus distance become a limiting factor of analog
communication systems.
 A/D and D/A
• Analog to Digital conversion; Digital to Analog
conversion
– Gateway from the communication device to the
channel
– Can be achieved by Sampling and Quantization
 A/D and D/A (cont)
• Quantization
 Modulation
• The basic idea here is to superimpose the
message signal in analog form on a carrier
which is a sinusoid of the form

ACos(wt + φ)

• There are three quantities that can be varied

in proportion to the modulating signal: the
amplitude, the phase, and frequency.

• The first scheme is called Amplitude

Modulation and the second two are called
Angle Modulation schemes
 Why Modulate
• Antenna size is a major concern
• The radiating antenna should be one tenth
or more of the wavelength
• For a speech signal (100 to 3000 Hz)
corresponding wavelength will be 100 to
3000 km
• For 1MHz signal you need antenna size of
only 30 meter
λ=v/f
• Where v = 3x108 m/s
 Why Modulate
• Simultaneous Transmission of several
Signals

• Frequency Division Multiplex (FDM)

• Time Division Multiplex (TDM)

 SNR, Bandwidth and Rate of
Communication
1. Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR):
SNR is defined as the ratio of signal power to noise power. Noise
distorts the signal and accumulated along the path.
The dB value is calculated by taking the log of the ratio of the
measured or calculated power (PS) wrt a reference power (PN) level.
Commonly referred to as the power ratio form for dB
signal power (W ) Ps P  V 2

= SNR s / Rin
dB = 10 log
s

= 10 log 2 dB
noise power (W ) Pn Pn  Vn / Rout 
It is normally measured in Decibel (dB), defined as 10 times the
algorithm (to base 10) of the power ratio.
Eg.: SNR of 10, 100 and 1000 correspond to 10, 20, and 30dBs,
respectively.
dBm is a dB level using a 1mW reference.
Signal power, S related to the quality of transmission.
Example – A receiver produces a
noise power of 200mW with no
signal. The output level increases to
5 W when a signal is applied.
Calculate SNR as in dBs.
2 Bandwidth
 Bandwidth is that portion of the spectrum occupied by a
signal.
 Specifically, bandwidth is the difference between the upper
and lower frequency limits of the signal or the equipment
operation range.
 Figure below, shows the bandwidth of the voice frequency
range from 300 to 3000Hz. The upper frequency is f2 and the
lower frequency is f1. The bandwidth, then is 2700Hz
BW = f2 – f1

Bandwidth is the frequency range

over which equipment operates or
that portion of the spectrum
occupied by the signal. This is the
voice frequency bandwidth.
 Bandwidth (B) of a channel is the range of frequencies
that it can transmit with reasonable fidelity.
 Bandwidth of an information signal is the difference
between the highest and lowest frequencies contained in
the information.
 Bandwidth of a communication channel is the difference
between the highest and lowest frequencies that the
channel will allow to pass through it (ie: its pass band).
 Data rate proportional to bandwidth
 Randomness
• Noise is a limiting factor in
communication systems

• Randomness is because of Noise,

which is the essence of
Communication System
 Rate of Communication
 Rate of information transmission is directly
proportional with its bandwidth
 Shannon limit for information capacity, C
C = B log2 (1 + SNR)

Where C = information capacity (bps)

B = bandwidth (Hz)
SNR = signal to noise ratio (no unit)
This is the upper limit for channel capacity for given bandwidth B
and signal-to-noise ration SNR for which channel can pass
Information with probability of error approximately equal to zero
Example 1 - For a standard telephone circuit with a SNR of 30dB
and a bandwidth of 2.7 kHz, determine the Shannon limit for
information capacity.

Example 2 – The telephone channel has a bandwidth of about

3kHz. Calculate the capacity of a telephone channel that has an
SNR of 1023.