Communication Systems 2012

Introduction
Communication means sending of massage (information) from one place and receiving it at the other places by means of some mean (e.g., by cables or electromagnetic waves). There by the two types of signals: (i) Analog Signal: It is in the form of a continuous sine wave. (ii) Digital Signal: It is in the form of discrete pulses coded by 0 or 1.

Element of Communication System

Communication system basically consists of three elements:

(i) Transmitter: The transmitter converts the message (or information) signal into a suitable
signal which may be passed on to a suitable medium called transmission channel. The signal processing for transmission usually involves modulation and coding.

(ii) Transmission Channel: It is the medium that carries the message in the form of a suitable
signal from one place to another. It may be a pair of wires, a co-axial cable, a radio wave or a laser beam. Every channel involves loss of energy during transmission. That is why signal power goes on decreasing with increasing distance.

(iii) Receiver: Receiver converts the suitable signal prepared by transmitter into actual message
(or information). Receiver operations include amplification of signal to compensate for the transmission loss, demodulation and decoding to reverse the signal processing performed by the transmitter. The three components of a transmission system are sketched in the fig.

Band Width of Signals

In a communication system the information may be in the form of voice, music, picture or digital data. Each of these signals has different frequency ranges.

(i) Speech Signals: The audible frequency range is 20 Hz to 20 kHz. For speech signals the
adequate frequency range is 300 Hz to 3100 Hz. Therefore, speech signals have a band width of (3100 300 = 2800 Hz). This is appropriate band width used in telephonic communication.

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Communication Systems 2012

For music signals the band width of 20 kHz is required because musical instruments produce sound of high frequencies.

(ii) T.V. Signals: The video signals for transmission of

pictures require a band width of about 4.2 MHz A T.V. signal contains both audio (speech and music) and video (pictures) signals and requires a bandwidth about 6 MHz.

(iii) Digital Data: There are two types of signals: Analog and Digital. Analog signals are usually in
the form of sine waves, while digital signals are in the form of rectangular waves.

According to Fourier series expansion method a rectangular wave is the resultant of superposition of infinite number of sinusoidal waves of frequencies is the fundamental frequency,

Figure shows a rectangular wave, (a) fundamental frequency wave, (b) superposition of fundamental frequency wave + second harmonic wave and (c) superposition of fundamental frequency wave + second harmonic wave + third harmonic wave. It is obvious that the rectangular wave can be reproduced exactly by superposition of all harmonics of frequencies This implies infinite band width for digital data.

However for practical purposes, the contributions from higher harmonics can be neglected, thus limiting the band width. This results in distortion of actual transmitted wave. If band width is sufficient to allow a few harmonics, then information is not lost. Thus band width of digital data varies with the rate of data to be transmitted. For faithful transmission of data signal, the band width must be widest as far as possible. The band width for digital data transmission is of the order GHz. ITU (International Telecommunication Union) has allotted different bands of frequencies to different Nations.

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Communication Systems 2012

Band Width of Transmission Medium

The transmission channels are of three types:

(i) Wires: The widely used wire medium is a co-axial cable. The band width of co-axial cables is about
750 MHz such cables are usually operated below 18 GHz.

(ii) Free Space: The free space transmission medium communicates radio waves over a wide range
of frequencies: from a few hundred kHz to a few GHz. This frequency range is further subdivided for allocation of various services as given in following table. Nature of Broadcast Amplitude Modulated Broadcast FM Radio Very High Frequency (VHF) T.V. Ultra High Frequency (UHF) T.V. Cellular Mobile Satellite Communication Frequency Band 5401600 kHz 88108 MHz 47230 MHz 470960 MHz 840935 MHz 5.925 6.425 GHz (Uplink) 3.74.2 GHz (Downlink)

(iii) Optical Fibre: An optical fibre has frequency range 1 THz to 100 THz (microwaves and
ultraviolet). It offers a transmission band width more than 100 GHz.

Propagation of Electromagnetic Waves

Space Communication: Space communication uses antennas and satellites. The electromagnetic
waves can be transmitted through three processes, (i) Ground wave propagation (ii) Space wave propagation (iii) Sky wave propagation

(i) Ground Waves: These are the waves radiated by antenna that travel parallel or at lower angles
with respect to earth's surface. As ground wave passes over the surface of earth, its energy is absorbed by earth's atmosphere; therefore they die out after travelling a short distance. Further low frequency waves are absorbed strongly. Hence ground wave propagation can be sustained only at low frequencies 500 Hz 1500 kHz.

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Communication Systems 2012

(ii) Space Wave Propagation: The space waves are limited to troposphere region of
atmosphere and has two components, (a) Direct waves: These travel directly from transmitting to receiving antenna. (b) Reflected waves: These travel from transmitting antenna to earth and then reflected to receiving antenna. (iii) Sky Waves: These are waves radiated by antenna at large angles, travel upward, and then reach the receiving antenna after suffering reflection from ionosphere or satellite. The refractive index of ionized layers depends on frequency and is given by

Satellite Communication: For satellite communication, the microwaves 1 cm to 3 cm are sent

to satellite, which reflects them to receiving antenna. The height of communication satellite from earth's surface is 35800 km. Three communication satellites are required to cover the entire globe of earth.

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Communication Systems 2012

Modulation
Need for Modulation
The sound waves of frequency 20 Hz 20,000 Hz get attenuated in atmosphere and cannot travel long distances. The higher frequency waves, (the order of megahertz) can travel long distances and are called carrier waves. To send farther the message signal (or information) is superposed on carrier wave. The process of superposing audible frequency waves on carrier wave is called modulation. The superposed wave is called the modulated wave. The modulation is needed due to (i) Transmission of audio frequency electrical signals need long impracticable antenna. (ii) The power radiated at audio frequency is quite small, hence transmission is quite lossy. (iii) The various information signals transmitted at low frequency get mixed and hence cannot be distinguished.

Types of Modulation
In general modulation is of two types depending on nature of carrier wave: (a) For continuous sinusoidal carrier wave of the type the modulation is of three types (i) (ii) (iii) Amplitude modulation (AM), Frequency modulation (FM), Phase modulation.

(b) For pulsed carrier wave, the types of modulation are: (i) Pulse amplitude modulation (PAM), (ii) Pulse time modulation (PTM), It is subdivided into classes (1) Pulse position modulation (PPM) and (2) Pulse width modulation (PWM) or pulse duration modulation (PDM) (iii) Pulse code modulation (PCM). Pulse modulation is preferred for digital communication.

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Communication Systems 2012

Production and Detection of A.M. Wave

(i) Production: In amplitude modulation, the amplitude of modulated wave varies according to
the instantaneous value of the message signal. A simple circuit for achieving this is shown in fig.

It is simply a common emitter amplifier for carrier wave. The modulating signal is applied on the base; so that base biasing voltage is not constant but is the sum of a d.c. voltage and modulating signal As the amplitude output has the same form as the input; therefore the output voltage will represent a modulated wave varying in amplitude in accordance with the biasing modulating voltage; thus giving amplitude-modulated wave.

Amplitude modulation is widely used for commercial broadcasting of audio (voice) signals. It is preferred because the production and reception of amplitude modulated signals are convenient and the equipments needed are cheaper. Moreover the carrier waves are of lower frequencies ranging from nearly 0.5 MHz to 2.0. But the main drawback of AM modulated wave is that it is noisy. The noise signals created by atmosphere and electrical disturbances also get mixed with the main signal. This creates reception problems for weak radio signals.

(ii) Detection: The process of recovery of audio-signal from the modulated wave is known as
demodulation or detection. Need of demodulation. When the radio frequency modulated waves, radiated from the transmitting antenna and after travelling through space, are received by receiving aerial, they induce very weak radio frequency currents and voltages in them. These high frequency currents cause no effect on audio frequency detectors like headphones or loudspeakers because sound devices are unable to respond to such high frequencies due to large inertia of their vibrating discs or diaphragms. These modulated waves

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Communication Systems 2012

cannot produce any direct effect on human ear because the frequency of modulated waves is much greater than the audible frequency range (20 20,000 Hz). Therefore the audio signal must be separated from the carrier.

Demodulation of AM Wave The demodulation of AM wave involves two operations: (i) Rectification of modulated wave. (ii) Elimination of RF component of the modulated wave.

Diode Detector for AM Wave As a linear detector: Figure represents the circuit diagram of most widely used diode detector employed for detection of amplitude modulated signals. The diode detector is called the linear detector because its output is proportional to the voltage of the input signal. Circuit Operation:

Of the various radio frequency voltages induced in receiver aerial, the tuned circuit selects only those of desired frequency due to electromagnetic induction between coils This signal is applied on the junction diode. This junction diode rectifies it. The result of this rectifying action is that the output of the diode consists of positive half cycles of modulated wave as shown.

The rectified modulated wave contains radio frequency (RF) wave and the audio frequency (AF) signal. The rectified modulated wave is passed on to low pass filter RC. The RF wave bypasses through capacitor C, because it offers low reactance to RF signals and high reactance to AF signals. The dc component of remaining signal is shunted through resistance R, because dc signal cannot pass through blocking capacitor The capacitor allows the low frequency signal to pass through. Thus audio frequency signal appears across output terminals, which is passed across the terminals of a suitable sound detector to hear the original sound.

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