COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

Lecture # 2
3rd Feb 2007

Instructor
WASEEM KHAN

Centre for Advanced Studies in Engineering

Summary of Previous Lecture

„ The objective of communication is to transfer of information from a

source to recipient via channel.
„ Information may be represented in analog as well as digital.
„ Channel may be wired or optical or wireless.
„ We often transform signals from time-domain to frequency domain
to find out
‰ Frequency contents of the signal
‰ Bandwidth of the signal
„ Bandwidth of the channel is sometimes limited due to channel
capacity and in case of wireless communications, it is usually
because of the regulations of the local telecommunication authority.
Now it is also due to international standards e.g. GSM.
Cosine and Sine in a Complex Plane
„ cos and sin waveforms have a mutual phase difference of 90°. Due
to this phase difference we can draw cos and sin functions as
vectors in a complex plane.
Im
„ Then how will we write the cos + j sin
combination of the cos and sin
functions? If we write cos + sin or
cos – sin, how their orthogonal
nature will be reflected? Re
„ Another concept of orthogonal
nature: Dot product of two
orthogonal vectors is zero.
Moving to Frequency Domain
Time domain Frequency domain
1

-1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (seconds) Frequency (Hz)

-2
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (seconds) Frequency (Hz)
Moving to Frequency Domain
1

0.5

-0.5
7 Hz
-1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

0.5

0 13 Hz
-0.5

-1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

0.5

-0.5

-1
17 Hz
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

0
Combined
-1

-2

-3
0 0. 1 0. 2 0. 3 0. 4 0. 5 0. 6 0. 7 0. 8 0. 9 1
Moving to Frequency Domain
„ The original signal can be matched with a number of frequencies to
know what are the constituent frequencies in the signal.
3
7 Hz + 13 Hz + 17 Hz
2

Original signal is
1

matched here
-1

-2

with 3 different
-3
0 0. 1 0. 2 0. 3 0. 4 0. 5 0. 6 0. 7 0. 8 0. 9 1

1
5 Hz
1
*
7 Hz
1
frequencies.
9 Hz

0.5 0.5 0.5

0 0 0

0.5 -0.5 -0.5

-1 -1 -1
0 0.5 1 0 0.5 1 0 0.5 1

⇓ ⇓ ⇓
0 a large number 0
* represents multiply-add operation i.e. addition of point-by-point products of two signals.
Moving to Frequency Domain
3

-1

-2

-3
0 0. 1 0. 2 0. 3 0. 4 0. 5 0. 6 0. 7 0. 8 0. 9 1

1
11 Hz
1
13 Hz * 1
15 Hz
1
17 Hz

0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

0 0 0 0

-0.5 -0.5 -0.5 -0.5

-1 -1 -1 -1
0 0.5 1 0 0.5 1 0 0.5 1 0 0.5 1

⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓
0 a large number 0 a large number
Moving to Frequency Domain
„ In this example, the constituent signals are of the form of cos(2 π f t),
where f = 7 Hz, 13 Hz, 17 Hz
and the waveforms used for correlation are of the form of cos(2 π f t),
where f = 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17 Hz
„ The original signal is highly matched with f = 7 Hz, 13Hz and 17 Hz.
Hence we can plot the original signal in frequency domain as follows.
Amplitude

0 5 10 15 20
Frequency (Hz)
Moving to Frequency Domain
5 Hz with π/2p radians
p phase shift
„ From the example it 1

becomes obvious that a 0.5

signal can be
transformed from time- 0
domain to frequency
domain by matching it -0.5

with a range of
frequencies; multiply- -1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

add operation gives

large values for
frequencies present in 1
*
5 Hz

the signal.
0.5

„ But what will happen when 0

⇒ 0
the signal is of the form of 0.5

sin(2 π f t), i.e. the signal is

-1
phase-shifted by 90º or π/2 0 0.5 1

radians?
Moving to Frequency Domain

„ It mentions that the signal doesn’t contain 5 Hz frequency. Off

course that’s not true.
„ What’s the solution of this problem?
„ Intuition says that we should match the original signal with sin(2 πf t)
instead of cos(2 π f t).
„ But we don’t know in advance whether the signal is shifted in phase
or not.
„ One approach is that we match the original signal with a combination
of cos and sin waveforms. This approach is illustrated with an
example in the next slide.
Moving to Frequency Domain
sin(2 πf t)
1

0.5

-0.5

-1

* ⇒ a large number
1.5
cos(2 π f t) + sin(2 π f t)
1

0.5

-0.5

-1

-1.5
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Moving to Frequency Domain
„ This approach succeeds but consider another situation.
„ What will happen when the phase shift lies between 0 and π/2 radians?
„ Let the signal is cos(2 π f t + π/6) and the waveform used for matching is
of the form of [cos(2 π f t) + sin(2 π f t)], where f = 5 Hz.

cos(2 π f t + π/6) * [cos(2 π f t) + sin(2 π f t)] ⇒ an intermediate number

„ An intermediate number in result indicates a low amplitude of the signal.

Hence this approach, too, does not produce true picture of the frequency
contents of a signal. What solution now?
Moving to Frequency Domain
„ Surprisingly the problem is solved when we multipy-add the signal with a
complex one instead of real. In this approach the signal is multiply-added
mathematically with cos(2 π f t) - j sin(2 π f t).

cos(2 π f t + π / 6) * [cos(2 π f t) - j sin(2 π f t)] ⇒ a + jb

Amplitude of the signal = a2 + b2

−1 ⎡b ⎤
Angle = tan ⎢a⎥
⎣ ⎦
And this angle is equal to the phase shift of the signal.
Moving to Frequency Domain

„ Visualization in complex plane

‰ Draw a vector at an angle of π / 6 radians (30º) representing cos(2 π f t +
π / 6). Resolve this vector along the real and imaginary axes. The
orthogonal components of this vector will be of the form a + j b, with ‘a’
and ‘b’ having the same values as determined by the multiply-add
method.

b
a
Fourier Transform
„ Euler’s identity: cos θ - j sin θ = e-jθ
„ cos(2 π f t) - j sin(2 π f t) = e-j2 π f t = e-jωt
„ Hence we match the given signal with e-jωt. This matching process can be
formulated as
∞

F (ω ) = ∫ f (t )e − jωt dt
−∞

where f (t) is the original signal as a function of time while F (ω) is Fourier
transform representing the same signal as a function of frequency. ω is
frequency variable, which can be replaced by a range of frequencies to plot the
spectrum of the signal.
„ A signal in frequency domain can also be transformed into time-domain. This
operation is called inverse Fourier transformation.
∞
1
F −1
( ω ) = f (t ) = ∫ F (ω ) e jω t
dω
2π −∞
Fourier Transform
„ Fourier transform of a signal f (t) exists if
‰ f (t) is absolutely integrable, that is
∞

∫ | f (t ) | dt < ∞
−∞

‰ f (t) has a finite number of maxima and minima within a finite interval
‰ f (t) has a finite number of discontinuities within a finite interval and
each of these discontinuities is finite.

„ Although the above conditions guarantee the existence of Fourier

transform, but signals not satisfying these conditions can have
Fourier transform. Some of these signals will be discussed later.
Fourier Transform

„ Using Fourier transform, a signal represented in time-domain can be

decomposed into its frequency components indicating the amplitude
and phase of each frequency content.
„ The whole picture of the frequency contents of the signal is called
spectrum.
„ Amplitude spectrum can be represented as

A = |F(ω)|
and phase spectrum as
φ = ∠ [F(ω)]
where F(ω) is the Fourier transform of a function f (t).
Fourier Transform
„ Example: Find the Fourier transform of
x (t )
⎛ t ⎞
x (t ) = rect ⎜ ⎟
⎝T ⎠ 1
∞

X (ω ) = ∫ x ( t ) exp( − j ω t ) dt
−∞
-T/2 0 T/2
T /2

= ∫ exp( − j ω t ) dt
−T / 2
T /2

= ∫ [cos (ω t ) − j sin (ω t )]dt

−T / 2
Fourier Transform

Solving integral and putting ω = 2πf, we get

sin (π fT )
X (f )= 1 X(f ) with T =1
πf
= T sinc ( fT )
0.5

where sinc is a standard function described by

0
sin(πx)
sinc( x ) =
πx
-0.5
-10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 1

Frequency (Hz)
Fourier Transform
Important Fourier transform pairs
Fourier Transform - Properties