Analogue and Digital Signals

 Noise: random, unwanted signal that adds to and distorts a transmitted signal
 Attenuation: progressive power loss in the signal as it travels along the transmission
path
Analogue quantity is one that can have any value, for example the height of a person.
 Analogue signal: a signal that has same variation (with time) as the data and is
continuously variable
 Digital signal: consists of a series of ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ and has no intermediate values.

Much of the information that is transmitted and communicated is analogue in nature.

If the analogue signal is transmitted over long distance, it will pick up noise. The power of the
signal becomes less, ie the signal is attenuated. For long distance transmission the signal has to
be amplified at regular intervals. The problem is that the noise will be amplified together with
the analogue signal. The signal will become noisy or distorted. This effect is shown in diagram
below.
There is little improvement possible for the analogue signal; amplification will not remove
the noise.

However, regeneration will remove the noise from a digital signal. The signal is ‘cleaned’ of
the noise and returned to its initial shape.

If the information to be transmitted is in digital form, then it too suffers from attenuation and
the addition of noise.
 The amplifiers which are used with digital signals are required only to produce a high
voltage or a low voltage and are not required to amplify small fluctuations in amplitude.
 Since noise typically consists of such small fluctuations, the amplification of a digital
signal does not also amplify the noise. These amplifiers are called regenerator
amplifiers and are able to reproduce the original digital signal and ‘filter out’ the
noise.
 Thus a digital signal can be transmitted through very long distances with regular
regenerations without becoming increasingly noisy as happens to analogue signals. This
is illustrated in below.

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Advantages of Digital Signals:
 Signal can be regenerated and noise can be eliminated
 Extra data can be added to check for errors
 Multiplexing: digital signals from a large number of different sources can be made to
share the same path
 Digital circuits are more reliable & cheaper to produce
 Data can be encrypted for security

Other advantages of using digital signals are:

o digital signals are compatible with modern technology and can be stored and
processed more easily, for example in a computer or on a compact disc (CD);
o digital electronic systems are, in general, more reliable and easier to design and
build;
o digital signals build in safeguards so that if there is an error in reception it is noticed
and parts of the signal can be sent again.

Analogue-to-Digital Conversion
 In digital transmission, the analogue signal is converted to digital using an analogue-to-
digital converter (ADC)
 When received, it is converted back to analogue using a digital-to-analogue converter
(DAC)
 To convert an analogue signal into digital, its voltage value is measured at regular
intervals (sampling)
 These instantaneous voltage values (samples) are converted into binary numbers
representing their value
 The binary bit 1 represents a ‘high’ voltage and 0 represents a ‘low’ hence a digital signal
is made of a series of high and low voltages
 The binary system has base 2 and each digit of a binary number is called a bit
 The bit on the left-hand side of a binary number is the most significant bit (MSB) and
has the highest value
 The number of bits per sample limits the number of possible voltage levels (with 4 bits
there are 24 = 16 levels; with 8 bits, there are 28 = 256 levels)
 A higher sampling frequency means that more information can be gathered from the
analogue signal

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Improving reproduction of input signal:
o increase number of bits in digital number at each sampling so that step height is reduced
o increase sampling frequency so width of step reduced
 When transmitting the digital signal, a parallel to serial converter can be used to take all the
bits and transmit them one after another down a single line rather than having e.g. 8 cables for
an 8bit number (cheaper)
 When received, a serial to parallel converter can convert the signal back to the original form