Analog & Digital Signals

Course Code: EEE 3215 Course Title: Principles of Communication

Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Faculty of Engineering

Lecture No: 3 Week No: 3 Semester:

Lecturer:
Lecture Outline

1. Analog and Digital Data

2. Analog and Digital Signals
3. Time and Frequency Domains
4. Composite Signal
5. Bandwidth
6. Transmission Impairment
7. Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)
Analog and Digital Data

Data can be
• Analog
• Digital

Analog data → information that is continuous

Example: sounds made by a human voice
Digital data → information that has discrete states
Example: data stored in computer memory (O’s and 1’s)
Analog and Digital Signals

Like the data they represent, signals can be either

• Analog
• Digital
Analog signals can have an infinite number of values in a range
Digital signals can have only a limited number of values
 Periodic and Nonperiodic Signals
 Both analog and digital signals can take one of two forms:
 Periodic
 Nonperiodic → Refer to as aperiodic, prefix a in Greek means "non“

 Periodic signal
 Completes a pattern within a measurable time frame, called a period,
and
 Repeats that pattern over subsequent identical periods

 Completion of one full pattern is called a cycle

 Nonperiodic signal changes without exhibiting a pattern or cycle

 Both analog and digital signals can be periodic or nonperiodic

 Commonly use: periodic analog signals (need less bandwidth) and

nonperiodic digital signals (can represent variation in data)
 Periodic Analog Signals
 Periodic analog signals can be classified as
 Simple or
 Composite

 Simple periodic analog signal cannot be decomposed

into simpler signals → a sine wave
 Composite periodic analog signal is composed of
multiple sine waves

Fig: Simple signal Fig: Composite signal

Sine Wave
 Sine wave is the most fundamental form of a
periodic analog signal

 Its change over the course of a cycle is smooth and

consistent, a continuous, rolling flow

 A sine wave can be represented by three

parameters: the peak amplitude, the frequency, and
the phase

Fig: Sine wave

 Peak Amplitude
 is the absolute value of its highest intensity
 proportional to the energy it carries

 Frequency refers to the number of periods in 1 s. Note that period

and frequency are just one characteristic defined in two ways.

 Period is the inverse of frequency, and frequency is the inverse of

period

 Frequency is formally expressed in Hertz (Hz), which is cycle per

second.
Units of period and frequency

 Example:
Phase
 Phase describes the position of the
waveform relative to time 0

 Phase is measured in degrees or

radians [360° is 2π rad; 1° is 2π/360
rad, and 1 rad is 360/(2π)]

 A phase shift of 360° corresponds to

a shift of a complete period;

 A phase shift of 180° corresponds to

a shift of one-half of a period

 A phase shift of 90° corresponds to a

shift of one-quarter of a period
Fig: Three sine waves with the same amplitude
and frequency, but different phases
Wavelength
 Wavelength is another characteristic of a signal
traveling through a transmission medium

 Wavelength binds the period or the frequency of a

simple sine wave to the propagation speed of the
medium
 Time and Frequency Domains
✓ Time-domain plot
Shows changes in signal amplitude with respect to time → amplitude-
versus-time plot
Phase is not explicitly shown on a time-domain plot
✓ Frequency-domain plot
To show the relationship between amplitude and frequency
Concerned with only the peak value and the frequency
Changes of amplitude during one period are not shown
Composite Signal
A single-frequency sine wave is not useful in data communications
Need to send a composite signal → a signal made of many simple sine waves
According to Fourier analysis, any composite signal is a combination of simple
sine waves with different frequencies, amplitudes, and phases.
If the composite signal is periodic, the decomposition gives a series of signals
with discrete frequencies
If the composite signal is nonperiodic, the decomposition gives a combination of
sine waves with continuous frequencies
Periodic Composite Signal: can be decomposed into a number
of signals with discrete frequencies in the frequency domain

Fig: A composite periodic signal Fig: Decomposition of a composite periodic

signal in the time and frequency domains
Nonperiodic Composite Signal: In a time-domain representation of
this composite signal, there are an infinite number of simple sine
frequencies
Bandwidth
✓ The range of frequencies contained in
a composite signal is its bandwidth
✓ The bandwidth of a composite signal
is the difference between the highest
and the lowest frequencies contained
in that signal
✓ For example, if a composite signal
contains frequencies between 1000
and 5000, its bandwidth is 5000 −
1000, or 4000

Fig: The bandwidth of periodic and

nonperiodic composite signals
Transmission Impairment

✓ Signals travel through transmission media, which are not perfect

✓ The imperfection causes signal impairment
✓ This means that the signal at the beginning of the medium is not the same as
the signal at the end of the medium
✓ Three causes of impairment are-
1. attenuation,
2. distortion, and
3. noise
 Attenuation means a loss of energy.

 When a signal, simple or composite, travels through a

medium, it loses some of its energy in overcoming the
resistance of the medium.

Fig: Attenuation
 Decibel
 To show that a signal has lost or gained strength, engineers use the
unit of the decibel.
 The decibel (dB) measures the relative strengths of two signals or one
signal at two different points.

 Variables P1 and P2 are the powers of a signal at points 1 and 2,

respectively.

 Note that the decibel is negative if a signal is attenuated and

positive if a signal is amplified.
 Example: The loss in a cable is usually defined in decibels per kilometer
(dB/km). If the signal at the beginning of a cable with −0.3 dB/km has a
power of 2 mW, what is the power of the signal at 5 km?
 Distortion means that the signal changes its form or
shape and can occur in a composite signal.

 Each signal component has its own propagation

speed through a medium and, therefore, its own
delay in arriving at the final destination

 Differences in delay may create a difference in

phase if the delay is not exactly the same as the
period duration.
 Noise is another cause of impairment.

 Several types of noise,

 Thermal noise → random motion of electrons in a
wire, which creates an extra signal not originally
sent by the transmitter
 Induced noise→ comes from sources such as motors
and appliances
 Impulse noise → that comes from power lines,
lightning, and so on
 Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)

To find the theoretical bit rate limit, we need to know the ratio of the signal power to the
noise power. The signal-to-noise ratio is defined as

SNR is actually the ratio of what is wanted (signal) to what is not wanted (noise).
Because SNR is the ratio of two powers, it is often described in decibel units, SNRdB,
defined as

Example: The power of a signal is 10 mW and the power of the noise is 1 μW; what are
the values of SNR and SNRdB
Books

1. Forouzan, B. A. "Data Communication and Networking. Tata McGraw." (2005).

References

1. Prakash C. Gupta, “Data communications”, Prentice Hall India Pvt.

2. William Stallings, "Data and Computer Communications”, Pearson
3. Forouzan, B. A. "Data Communication and Networking. Tata McGraw." (2005).