ECE 353: Data Communication

Systems
ECE 353
Lecture 10
Line Coding and Inter-Symbol
Interference (ISI)
Ayman H. Ismail
Ain Shams University
ICL
A. Ismail 1
Outline
Line coding
Intersymbol Interference
Nyquist First Criterion for zero ISI
Problems with Using the Sinc pulse Shape
Raised Cosine Spectrum
M-ary PAM
A. H. Ismail 2
Line Coding
The digital bits to be transmitted over channel are converted
into electrical pulses (waveforms) that has certain
characteristics. This process is called line coding
Line codes should have the following properties
Transmission bandwidth
Power efficiency
Favorable power spectral density (zero power-spectral density at DC
(f=0)) because ac coupling and transformers are often used at
repeaters
Adequate timing content to allow clock extraction at the receiver
A. H. Ismail 3
A. H. Ismail 4
0 1 1 0 1 0
Unipolar
NRZ
Polar
NRZ
Bipolar
NRZ
Unipolar
RZ
Polar
RZ
Manchester
(Split Phase)
Line Codes
NRZ: Non-return to zero
RZ: Return to zero
In presence of long runs of 1s or 0s, NRZ coding does not
provide enough edges to allow clock extraction from the
incoming data
Polar RZ provides edges within each bit allowing easy clock
extraction. However, RZ signaling requires double the
transmission bandwidth
Bipolar signaling : Spectrum has a DC null. No power at DC
Manchester: information in signal edges (rising or falling edge)
A. H. Ismail 5
Inter-symbol Interference (ISI)
In previous discussion rectangular pulses were assumed.
Strictly speaking the spectrum of the transmitted signal would
have infinite bandwidth
When this signal is transmitted over a channel with limited
bandwidth, the high frequency content of the signal is
attenuated
Hence, the sharp transitions of the rectangular pulses get
smoothed and the pulses spread in time
Spreading of pulses beyond allotted time interval T
b
(bit
period) causes pulses to interfere with its neighboring pulses
A. H. Ismail 6
Nyquist First Criterion for zero ISI
It should be first noted that it is sufficient to eliminate
interference at decision making instants of every bit to get
zero ISI
Thus, Nyquist achieved zero ISI by choosing a pulse shape that
has a non-zero amplitude at its center (say t=0) and zero
amplitudes at , where T
b
is the separation
between successive transmitted pulses
A. H. Ismail 7
= ) (t p
0 t , 1 =
b
nT = t , 0
)
1
(
b
b
R
T =
b
nT t =
Nyquist First Criterion for zero ISI
There is one signal that satisfies Nyquist first criterion and has
bandwidth = R
b
/2 (the minimum theoretical bandwidth
required to transmit a bit-rate of R
b
)
That is the sinc function
A. H. Ismail 8
= = ) ( sinc p(t) t R
b
0 t , 1 =
b
nT = t , 0
)
1
(
b
b
R
T =
) (
1
p(f)
b b
R
f
R
H =
Using Nyquist First Criterion for
zero ISI
A. H. Ismail 9
1 1
0 1
) ( sinc t R p(t)
b
=

= ) ( a
b k
kT t p y(t)
T
b
2T
b
3T
b
0
R
b
=64Kbps
Practical Problems with Using the
Sinc Pulse Shape
The sinc function is impractical since it starts at -. If it is
truncated its band-width would increase above R
b
/2
Even if the sinc function is realizable, it is still suffers from
another drawback. That is it decays slowly with time t (it
decays with 1/t).
The slow decay of the sinc function would cause series
practical problems in the presence of any timing error in the
sampling instant of the received pulses (because in this case
neighboring pulses would not have zero value at the sampling
instant)
A. H. Ismail 10
Practical Problems with Using the
Sinc Pulse Shape
To avoid practical problems associated with sinc pulse shape,
a pulse shape with faster decay can be used.
Nyquist has shown that a signal that satisfies Nyquist first
criterion of zero ISI and has a faster decay than 1/t would
require a bandwidth of
So R
b
/2 is the minimum theoretical bandwidth required for
zero ISI. However, practically a larger bandwidth is needed
A. H. Ismail 11
2 1 where ,
2
s s K
R
K
b
The Raised Cosine Spectrum
One family of spectra that satisfies Nyquist First Criterion is
the raised cosine that has a spectrum as follows
where f
x
is the excess bandwidth (bandwidth in excess of the
minimum bandwidth R
b
/2)
A. H. Ismail 12
= ) ( f P
fx
R
|f|
b
<
2
, 1
fx
R
|f|
b
+ >
2
, 0
fx |
R
|f )
f
f-R
( -
b
x
b
<
(

2
,
2
2 /
sin 1
2
1
The Raised Cosine Spectrum
Hence, the bandwidth needed for the raised cosine is
A roll-off factor, r, is defined as follows
Therefore the bandwidth can be defined in terms of r
Larger r faster decay in time, and therfore less sensitivity to
timing errors, but more bandwidth
A. H. Ismail 13
fx
R
B
b
T
+ =
2
2 / bandwidh minimum
bandwidth excess
b
x
R
f
r = =
) 1 (
2
r
R
B
b
T
+ =
A. H. Ismail 14
R
b
=64Kbps and
f
x
=16KHz
r=1/2
f
x
B
T
=R
b
/2+f
x
=64Kbps/2+16KHz=48KHz
R
b
/2
f
x
r=1/4
r=1/2
r=1
The Raised Cosine pulse Shape
For the case of r=1
Using inverse Fourier transform
p(t) is non-zero at t=0 and is equal to zero at all other
sampling instants (nT
b
)
p(t) decays with 1/t
3
A. H. Ismail 15
) ( sinc
4 1
) cos(
) (
2
2
t R
t R
t R
R t p
b
b
b
b
t
t

=
) ( )
2
( cos ) (
2
b
b
fT
fT
f P H =
M-ary PAM
Regardless of the line code used, binary baseband
modulation have one thing in common, they all transmit one
bit of information over the interval of T
b
second
If R
b
is increased by a factor by a factor of M, then bandwidth
needs to increased by M
An alternative way is to allow each pulse to carry multiple
bits. This requires using more than 2 symbols.
For Mnumber of symbols. Each symbol can carry lb M bits
A. H. Ismail 16
M-ary PAM
For example, for M= 4. there are 4 different symbols available.
Hence, A sequence of two binary bits can be transmitted by
just one 4-ary symbol.
To have same noise immunity, the minimum separation
between pulse amplitudes should be comparable to that of
binary pulses.
Transmitted power increases as M
2
.
Thus to increase communication rate by a factor of lb(M) (or
reduce bandwidth of a given bit rate by a factor of lb(M),
power needs to increased by M
2
.
A. H. Ismail 17