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In digital communications, symbol rate (also known as baud or modulation rate) is the number of symbol changes (waveform changes or signalling events) made to the transmission medium per second using a digitally modulated signal or a line code. The Symbol rate is measured in baud (Bd) or symbols/second. In the case of a line code, the symbol rate is the pulse rate in pulses/second. Each symbol can represent or convey one or several bits of data. The symbol rate is related to, but should not be confused with, the gross bitrate expressed in bit/second.
Contents
1 Symbols 1.1 Relationship to gross bitrate 1.2 Modems for passband transmission 1.3 Line codes for baseband transmission 1.4 Digital television and OFDM example 1.5 Relationship to chip rate 1.6 Relationship to bit error rate 2 Modulation 2.1 Binary Modulation 2.2 N-ary Modulation, N greater than 2 2.3 Data Rate versus Error Rate 3 Significant condition 4 References 5 See also 6 External links
Symbols
A symbol is a waveform, a state or significant condition of the communication channel that persists for a fixed period of time. A sending device places symbols on the channel at a fixed and known symbol rate,and the receiving device has the job of detecting the sequence of symbols in order to reconstruct the transmitted data. There may be a direct correspondence between a symbol and a small unit of data (for example, each symbol may encode one or several binary digits or 'bits') or the data may be represented by the transitions between symbols or even by a sequence of many symbols. The symbol duration time, also known as unit interval, can be directly measured as the time between transitions by looking into an eye diagram of an oscilloscope. The symbol duration time Ts can be calculated as:
where fs is the symbol rate. A simple example: A baud rate of 1 kBd = 1,000 Bd is synonymous to a symbol rate of 1,000 symbols per second. In case of a modem, this corresponds to 1,000 tones per second, and in case of a line code, this corresponds to 1,000 pulses per second. The symbol duration time is 1/1,000 second = 1 millisecond.
In that case M=2N different symbols are used. In a modem, these may be sinewave tones with unique combinations of amplitude, phase and/or frequency. For example, in a 64QAM modem, M=64. In a line code, these may be M different voltage levels. By taking information per pulse N in bit/pulse to be the base-2-logarithm of the number of distinct messages M that could be sent, Hartley[1] constructed a measure of the gross bitrate R as:
In a digital modulation method provided by a modem, each symbol is typically a sine wave tone with certain frequency, amplitude and phase. The baud rate is the number of transmitted tones per second. One symbol can carry one or several bits of information. In voiceband modems for the telephone network, it is common for one symbol to carry up to 7 bits. Conveying more than one bit per symbol or bit per pulse has advantages. It reduces the time required to send a given quantity of data over a limited bandwidth. A high spectral efficiency in (bit/s)/Hz can be achieved, i.e. a high bit rate in bit/s although the bandwidth in hertz may be low. The maximum baud rate for a passband for common modulation methods such as QAM, PSK and OFDM is approximately equal to the passband bandwidth. Voiceband modem examples: A V.22bis modem transmits 2400 bit/s using 1200 Bd (1200 symbol/s), where each quadrature amplitude modulation symbol carries two bits of information. The modem can generate M=22=4 different symbols. It requires a bandwidth of 1200 Hz (equal to the baud rate). The carrier frequency (the central frequency of the generated spectrum) is 1800 Hz, meaning that the lower cut off frequency is 1800 -1200/2 = 1200 Hz, and the upper cutoff frequency is 1800 + 1200/2 = 2400 Hz. A V.34 modem may transmit symbols at a baud rate of 3,420 Bd, and each symbol can carry up to ten bits, resulting in a gross bit rate of 3420 * 10 = 34,200 bit/s. However, the modem is said to operate at a net bit rate of 33,800 bit/s, excluding physical layer overhead.
In digital terrestrial digital television (DVB-T, DVB-H and similar techniques) OFDM modulation is used, i.e. multicarrier modulation. The above symbol rate should then be divided by the number of OFDM sub-carriers in view to achieve the OFDM symbol rate. See the OFDM system comparison table for further numerical details.
symbols from each other, which may be difficult and cause bit errors in case of a poor phone line that suffers from low signal-to-noise ratio. In that case, a modem or network adapter may automatically choose a slower and more robust modulation scheme or line code, using fewer bits per symbol, in view to reduce the bit error rate. An optimal symbol set design takes into account channel bandwidth, desired information rate, noise characteristics of the channel and the receiver, and receiver and decoder complexity.
Modulation
Many data transmission systems operate by the modulation of a carrier signal. For example, in frequency-shift keying (FSK), the frequency of a tone is varied among a small, fixed set of possible values. In a synchronous data transmission system, the tone can only be changed from one frequency to another at regular and well-defined intervals. The presence of one particular frequency during one of these intervals constitutes a symbol. (The concept of symbols does not apply to asynchronous data transmission systems.) In a modulated system, the term modulation rate may be used synonymously with symbol rate. Binary Modulation If the carrier signal has only two states, then only one bit of data (i.e., a 0 or 1) can be transmitted in each symbol. The bit rate is in this case equal to the symbol rate. For example, a binary FSK system would allow the carrier to have one of two frequencies, one representing a 0 and the other a 1. A more practical scheme is differential binary phase-shift keying, in which the carrier remains at the same frequency, but can be in one of two phases. During each symbol, the phase either remains the same, encoding a 0, or jumps by 180, encoding a 1. Again, only one bit of data (i.e., a 0 or 1) is transmitted by each symbol. This is an example of data being encoded in the transitions between symbols (the change in phase), rather than the symbols themselves (the actual phase). (The reason for this in phase-shift keying is that it is impractical to know the reference phase of the transmitter.) N-ary Modulation, N greater than 2 By increasing the number of states that the carrier signal can take, the number of bits encoded in each symbol can be greater than one. The bit rate can then be greater than the symbol rate. For example, a differential phase-shift keying system might allow four possible jumps in phase between symbols. Then two bits could be encoded at each symbol interval, achieving a data rate of double the symbol rate. In a more complex scheme such as 16-QAM, four bits of data are transmitted in each symbol, resulting in a bit rate of four times the symbol rate. Data Rate versus Error Rate Modulating a carrier increases the frequency range, or bandwidth, it occupies. Transmission channels are generally limited in the bandwidth they can carry. The bandwidth depends on the symbol (modulation) rate (not directly on the bit rate). As the bit rate is the product of the symbol rate and the number of bits encoded in each symbol, it is clearly advantageous to increase the latter if the former is fixed. However, for each additional bit encoded in a symbol, the constellation of symbols (the number of states of the carrier) doubles in size. This makes the states less distinct from one another which in turn makes it more difficult for the receiver to detect the symbol correctly in the presence of disturbances on the channel. The history of modems is the attempt at increasing the bit rate over a fixed bandwidth (and therefore a fixed maximum symbol rate), leading to increasing bits per symbol. For example, the V.29 specifies 4 bits per symbol, at
a symbol rate of 2,400 baud, giving an effective bit rate of 9,600 bits per second. The history of spread spectrum goes in the opposite direction, leading to fewer and fewer data bits per symbol in order to spread the bandwidth. In the case of GPS, we have a data rate of 50 bit/s and a symbol rate of 1.023 Mchips/s. If each chip is considered a symbol, each symbol contains far less than one bit ( 50 bit/s / 1023 ksymbols/s =~= 0.000 05 bits/symbol ). The complete collection of M possible symbols over a particular channel is called a M-ary modulation scheme. Most modulation schemes transmit some integer number of bits per symbol b, requiring the complete collection to contain M = 2^b different symbols. Most popular modulation schemes can be described by showing each point on a constellation diagram, although a few modulation schemes (such as MFSK, DTMF, pulse-position modulation, spread spectrum modulation) require a different description.
Significant condition
In telecommunication, in the modulation of a carrier, a significant condition is one of the values of the signal parameter chosen to represent information.[2] A significant condition could be an electrical current (voltage, or power level), an optical power level, a phase value, or a particular frequency or wavelength. The duration of a significant condition is the time interval between successive significant instants.[2] A change from one significant condition to another is called a signal transition. Information can be transmitted either during the given time interval, or encoded as the presence or absence of a change in the received signal.[3] Significant conditions are recognized by an appropriate device called a receiver, demodulator, or decoder. The decoder translates the actual signal received into its intended logical value such as a binary digit (0 or 1), an alphabetic character, a mark, or a space. Each significant instant is determined when the appropriate device assumes a condition or state usable for performing a specific function, such as recording, processing, or gating.[2]
References
1. ^ D. A. Bell (1962). Information Theory; and its Engineering Applications (3rd ed.). New York: Pitman. 2. ^ a b c Federal Standard 1037C (http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/fs-1037c.htm) . National Communications System. 1996-07-07. http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/fs-1037c.htm. 3. ^ "System Design and Engineering Standard for Tactical Communications" (http://assist.daps.dla.mil/quicksearch/basic_profile.cfm?ident_number=35582) . Mil-Std-188-200 (United States Department of Defense). 1983-05-28. http://assist.daps.dla.mil/quicksearch/basic_profile.cfm? ident_number=35582.
See also
Chip rate Gross bit rate, also known as data signaling rate or line rate. bandwidth Bitrate Constellation diagram, which shows (on a graph or 2D oscilloscope image) how a given signal state (a symbol) can represent three or four bits at once.
External links
What is the Symbol rate? (http://www.heyrick.co.uk/ricksworld/digibox/symfec.html) "On the origins of serial communications and data encoding" (http://www.compkarori.com/dbase/bu07sh.htm) . http://www.compkarori.com/dbase/bu07sh.htm. Retrieved January 4, 2007. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_rate" Categories: Data transmission This page was last modified on 18 January 2011 at 23:37. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.