www.covenantuniversity.edu.

ng

Raising a new Generation of Leaders

ICE111: INTRODUCTION TO INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

SIGNAL TRANSMISSION, RECEPTION, &

COMMUNICATION CHANNELS

DR. K. OKOKPUJIE
 Communication system elements

The purpose of a communication system is to transmit an information-bearing

signal, from a source, located at one point, to a user or destination, located at
another point some distance away.
The elements of a communication systems are:
 Information source
 Input transducer
 Transmitter
 Communication Channel
 Output transducer and;
Figure: FM transmitter with Circularly
 Receiver Polarized Antenna

2
 Communication system elements

Figure: Input and Output Transducer

3
 Information Source

 Only the desired message is selected and conveyed or communicated.

 Its function is to produce the required message to be transmitted over the
channel.
 Examples of information source are: sine wave generator (generates sine
waves), square wave generator (generates square waves, oscillator
(generates pulses or clock signal), microphone (generates audio), computer
(generates text, audio, video etc), radio (generates audio), TV (generates
audio, video, pictures), etc
 Examples of information or signal to be conveyed via the communication
channels are: texts, audio, video, image etc
4
Figure: Information Sources

5
 Input Transducer

• The purpose of an input transducer is to convert the

information into a time-varying electrical signal before
being transmitted by the transmitter through the
channel.

Figure: Square Wave Generator

6
 Transmitter

 Its function is to process the received electrical signal

in different aspects such as modulation, amplification,
coding etc
 These is called preprocessing of electrical signals.
 Its purpose is to ease the transmission of information
through the channel.

7
 Communication Channel

 Its function is to provide physical connection between

the transmitter and the receiver.
 This can be a point-to-point channel (e.g. wire-line,
microwave link, optical fibre) or a broadcast channel
(e.g. geostationary satellite).
 Broadcast channel: Several receiving stations can be
reached simultaneously via a single transmitter. e.g. via
satellite
8
 Output Transducer

• This converts the electrical received signal back to the

format replica of the original input signal to the input
transducer.

9
Receiver

 This performs the opposite function of the transmitter.

 It does the reversal of the various signal processing
done at the transmitter.
 Finally, it produces the original signal.

10
 Communication Channels and their Characteristics

The medium over which the information is passed from

the transmitter to the receiver is called a
communication channel.

11
 Types of Communication Channels

It can be classified as: Channels based on guided

propagation (Telephone Channel, Coaxial Cable, Fibre
Optic Cable, Twisted Pair etc), and Channels based on
free propagation (Wireless Broadcast Channels,
Mircrowave / Radio Link, Satellite Channels, Mobile
Radio Channels).

12
 Communication Channel Characteristics

o These characteristics are:

• Power required to achieve the desired S/N ratio.
• Bandwidth of the channel.
• Amplitude and phase response of channel.
• Type of channel (Linear or non-Iinear).
• Effects of external interference on the channel.

13
 Telephone Channel

 It is designed for providing service to voice signals

such telephone.
 Telephone channels are also used for world wide
internet connections.

Figure: Amplitude Response Graph of

Telephone Channel.

14
 Salient Characteristics

 It has bandpass characteristics between 300 Hz and 3400 Hz.

 It has high signal to noise ratio of about 30 dB.
 It has approximately linear response.
 The channels are built using twisted pair of cable.

Information (data, images) are strongly affected by phase

delay variation, hence the need to use an equalizer as shown
in the figure below
15
Figure: Use of Equalizer in a Communication System

16
 Twisted Pair

 This is also commonly used medium and it is quite cheaper than the coaxial
cable.
 It consists of two insulated conductor twisted together in the spiral form as
shown in the figure below.
 It can be shielded or unshielded.
 The unshielded are cheap and easy to install, however they are affected by
noise interference.
 For the shielded twisted pair, metallic braid can be used around the cable and
then a protective plastic coating is used and they have noise immunity.
 It has a transmission rate of 16.8 kilobit/sec (kb/s).
17
Figure: Twisted Pair Cables

18
 Coaxial Cable
 It consists of two concentric conductors (internal and external) separated by
dielectric.
 An insulating material separates the internal conductor from the external
conductor.
 The external conductor used for shielding the cable is a metallic braided
material.
 The digital transmission system using coaxial cable was built in 1970.
 It has a transmission rate of 8.5 Mb/s to 274 Mb/s
 It is used in cable modem and Ethernet LAN.
 It is mostly used for its large bandwidth and high noise immunity.
19
Figure: Coaxial Cables

20
 Salient Features of Coaxial Cable

 Two types of cables having 75 ῼ and 50 ῼ impedance are available.

 It has excellent noise immunity due to the shield provided.
 It has a large bandwidth and low losses.
 It is suitable for point to point or point to multipoint applications for instance in
LANs.
 These cables are costlier than twisted pair cables, however, they are cheaper than
the optical fiber cables.
 It is essential to use closely spaced (after every 1 km) repeaters to achieve the data
rate for transmission.
 Because of their higher bandwidth, they are more suitable for digital signal
transmission.
21
 Fibre Optic Cable

oIt consists of an inner glass core surrounded by a glass

cladding which has a lower refractive index.
oDigital signals are transmitted in the form of intensity-
modulated light signal which is trapped in the glass core.
oLight is launched into the fibre using a light source such as
light Emitting Diode (LED) or Laser.
oIt is detected on the other side using a photo detector such as
a phototransistor.
22
Figure: Fibre Optic Cables

23
 Special Characteristics

The characteristics of optical fiber cables are as follows:

• Higher bandwidth therefore can operate at higher data rates.
• Reduced losses as the signal attenuation is low.
• Distortion is reduced hence better quality is assured.
• They are immune to electromagnetic interferences.
• Small size and light weight.
• Used for point to point communication.

24
 Application

 They are widely used in the backbone of networks.

Current optical fibers provides transmission rate from
45Mb/s to 9.6Gb/s using the single wavelength
transmission.
 They used in the telephone systems and the local
area networks (LANs).

25
 Advantages

 Small size and light weight.

 Easy availability of materials and low cost.
 No electrical or electromagnetic interference.
 Large bandwidth.
 No cross talk inside the fibre optic cable.
 Intermediate amplifier are not needed as the transmission losses are
low.
 Installation is easy as the fibre optic cables are flexible.
 They are not affected by drastic environmental condition
26
 Disadvantages

oFibre optic cables are costlier than twisted pair and

coaxial cable.
oSophisticated plants are required for manufacturing
optical fibres.
oThe initial cost incurred is high.
oJoining the optical fibres is a difficult task.

27
 Wireless Broadcast Channels

 These are used for the transmission of radio and TV signals.

 The modulating signal modulates a carrier frequency.
 The signals are radiated via a transmitting antenna as EM
waves in all directions or in some specific directions.
 The propagation can be ground wave, sky wave, or space
wave.
 The signals are received at the receiving end.

28
Figure: Ground wave, Sky wave, and Space wave Propagation

29
 Radio Frequency Link (Microwave Link)
 It is used for point to point communication.
 The radio frequencies used for RF links are in
microwave range, hence they are also called
microwave links
 This is shown in the figure below.
 Microwave frequency are frequency above 1 GHz.

30
Figure: Illustration of microwave links

31
Figure: Radio Frequency Spectrum

32
Figure: Electromagnetic Spectrum

33
 Radio Frequency Link (Microwave Link)
 For long distance transmission, microwave transmission is
widely used as an alternative to coaxial cable.
 The signal transmission takes place in form of EM wave
which have wavelength of few centimeters.
 Transmitting and receiving antennas are highly directional
to enable point to point communication.
 It is widely used for the telephone and television
transmission.
34
 Salient Features

 Installation of towers and associated equipments is cheaper than

laying down a cable of length 100 km.
 It requires less maintenance as compared to cable.
 Repeaters can be used, hence, the effect of noise is reduced.
 No adverse effect such as the cable breakage.
 There is no interference with other communication systems because
of the use of highly directional antennas.
 Reduction in the size of the transmitter and receiver because of the
high frequency usage.
35
 Disadvantages

 The signal strength at the reception reduces due to

multiple reception.
 The transmission will be affected by thunderstorm
and other atmospheric phenomenon.

36
 Mobile Radio Channels

 Both the sender and the receiver are allowed to move during
transmission.
 Signal transmission occurs due to scattering, diffraction, reflections
from buildings, trees, human bodies etc.
 Signals arrive at the receiver via multiple paths with different delays,
amplitude, and phase, hence multipath communication.
 Transmitted signals experience fading, interference, noise that reduce
the signal quality at the reception.
 The signals can either add constructively or destructively at the receiver.

37
 Satellite Channels

 It uses directional parabolic antennas to send signals using the microwave

frequency.
 They use Line of Sight (LOS) communication.
 It has satellite that serve as a repeater in space.
 The satellite has transmitting antenna, receiving antenna, and transponder.
 Information are sent to the satellite from an earth station.
 The satellite receives the message, processes (amplify, translate the
frequency – downconvert), and then relay it to an earth signal.
 They are mostly used to transmit signal to remote places. e.g. Elon Musk
Star Link Satellite
38
Figure: Illustration of Satellite System

39
 Salient Features
• The satellite microwave system has frequency range between 11 GHz and 14
GHz.
• Attenuation depends on frequency, Power, antenna size and atmospheric
condition.
• The signals are affected by EMI effect, jamming etc.
• Its installation is extremely difficult, and it must be perfectly align with an earth
station.
• The cost of building and launching is very high.
• It can provide point to point or broadcast service.
• Transmission from an earth station to a satellite is called an uplink and the signal is
called an uplink signal.
40
 Salient Features
• Transmission from the satellite back to an earth station is
called a downlink and the signal is called downlink signal.
• There can be more than one transponders per satellite. For
instance, in the 6/4 GHz, a typical satellite is assigned a 500
MHz bandwidth. So for a 12 transponders, each will have
approximately 36 MHz bandwidth.
• A transponder can have atleast one TV channel, 1200 voice
channels or a digital data at the rate of 50 Mb/s.
41