Digital Communication

Line Coding

Ashutosh Rastogi
Quality Education for all…
 Outline
• Line Coding
• Considerations about Line Coding
• Line Coding
• Unipolar
• Polar
• Bipolar
• T-1 Digital System
• Digital Hierarchy
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 Line Coding
• Converting a string of 1’s and 0’s (digital data)
into a sequence of signals that denote the 1’s
and 0’s.
• For example a high voltage level (+V) could
represent a “1” and a low voltage level (0 or -
V) could represent a “0”.

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 Signal Element versus Data
Element
• Data element
• The smallest entity that can represent a piece of
information: this is bit.
• Signal element
• The shortest unit (timewise) of a digital signal.
• In other words
• Data element are what we need to send.
• Signal elements are what we can send.

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 Line coding and decoding

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 Mapping Data symbols onto Signal
levels
• A data symbol (or element) can consist of a number
of data bits:
• 1 , 0 or
• 11, 10, 01, ……
• A data symbol can be coded into a single signal
element or multiple signal elements
• 1 -> +V, 0 -> -V
• 1 -> +V and -V, 0 -> -V and +V
• The ratio ‘r’ is the number of data elements carried
by a signal element.

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 Relationship between data rate
and signal rate
• The data rate defines the number of bits sent per sec
- bps. It is often referred to the bit rate.
• The signal rate is the number of signal elements sent
in a second and is measured in bauds. It is also
referred to as the baud rate.
• Goal is to increase the data rate whilst reducing the
baud rate.

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 Signal element versus data
element

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 Data rate and Baud rate

• The baud or signal rate can be expressed as:

S = c x N x 1/r bauds
where N is data rate
c is the case factor (worst, best & avg.)
r is the ratio between data element &
signal element

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 Considerations about Line Coding
• Transmission Bandwidth
• The transmission bandwidth should be as small as
possible.
• Power Efficiency
• For a given bandwidth and specified error rate the
transmitted power should be as low as possible.

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 Considerations about Line Coding
• Self synchronization
• the clocks at the sender and the receiver must
have the same bit interval.
• If the receiver clock is faster or slower it will
misinterpret the incoming bit stream.
• It may become the source of incorrigible errors.

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 Considerations about Line Coding

Effect of lack of synchronization

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 Considerations about Line Coding
• Error detection
• errors occur during transmission due to line
impairments.
• Some codes are constructed such that when an
error occurs it can be detected.
• For example: a particular signal transition is not
part of the code. When it occurs, the receiver will
know that a symbol error has occurred.

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 Considerations about Line Coding
• Noise and interference
• there are line encoding techniques that make the
transmitted signal “immune” to noise and
interference.
• This means that the signal cannot be corrupted, it
is stronger than error detection.
• Complexity
• the more robust and resilient the code, the more
complex it is to implement and the price is often
paid in baud rate or required bandwidth.

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 Considerations about Line Coding
• Baseline wandering:
• a receiver will evaluate the average power of the
received signal (called the baseline) and use that to
determine the value of the incoming data elements.
• If the incoming signal does not vary over a long
period of time, the baseline will drift and thus cause
errors in detection of incoming data elements.
• A good line encoding scheme will prevent long runs
of fixed amplitude.

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 Considerations about Line Coding
• DC components
• When the voltage level in a digital signal is constant
for a while, the spectrum creates very low frequencies
(results of Fourier analysis).
• These frequencies around zero, call DC (direct-current)
components, present problems for a system that
cannot pass low frequencies or a system that uses
electrical coupling (via a transformer).
• For example, a telephone line cannot pass frequencies
below 200 Hz.

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 Line Coding Classification

Line coding schemes

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 Unipolar
• All signal levels are on one side of the time axis -
either above or below
• NRZ - Non Return to Zero scheme is an example of
this code. The signal level does not return to zero
during a symbol transmission.
• Scheme is prone to baseline wandering and DC
components. It has no synchronization or any error
detection. It is simple but costly in power
consumption.

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 Unipolar NRZ

Unipolar NRZ scheme

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 Polar - NRZ
• The voltages are on both sides of the time axis.
• Polar NRZ scheme can be implemented with two
voltages. E.g. +V for 1 and -V for 0.
• There are two versions:
• NRZ - Level (NRZ-L) - positive voltage for one symbol and
negative for the other
• NRZ - Inversion (NRZ-I) - the change or lack of change in
polarity determines the value of a symbol. E.g. a “1”
symbol inverts the polarity a “0” does not.

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 Polar NRZ-L and NRZ-I

Polar NRZ-L and NRZ-I schemes

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 Polar NRZ-L and NRZ-I
• In NRZ-L the level of the voltage determines the
value of the bit. In NRZ-I the inversion or the lack of
inversion determines the value of the bit.
• NRZ-L and NRZ-I both have an average signal rate of
N/2 Bd.
• NRZ-L and NRZ-I both have a DC component problem
and baseline wandering, it is worse for NRZ-L. Both
have no self synchronization &no error detection.
Both are relatively simple to implement.

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 Polar - RZ
• The Return to Zero (RZ) scheme uses three voltage
values. +, 0, -.
• Each symbol has a transition in the middle. Either from
high to zero or from low to zero.
• This scheme has more signal transitions (two per
symbol) and therefore requires a wider bandwidth.
• No DC components or baseline wandering.
• Self synchronization - transition indicates symbol value.
• More complex as it uses three voltage level. It has no
error detection capability.

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 Polar - RZ

Polar RZ scheme

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 Polar - Biphase: Manchester and
Differential Manchester
• Manchester (Split Phase) coding consists of
combining the NRZ-L and RZ schemes.
• Every symbol has a level transition in the middle: from high
to low or low to high.
• Uses only two voltage levels.
• Differential Manchester (Coded Mark Inversion)coding
consists of combining the NRZ-I and RZ schemes.
• Every symbol has a level transition in the middle. But the
level at the beginning of the symbol is determined by the
symbol value. One symbol causes a level change the other
does not.

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 Polar - Biphase: Manchester and
Differential Manchester

Polar biphase: Manchester and differential Manchester schemes

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 Polar - Biphase: Manchester and
Differential Manchester
• In Manchester and differential Manchester encoding,
the transition at the middle of the bit is used for
synchronization.
• The minimum bandwidth of Manchester and
differential Manchester is 2 times that of NRZ.
• There is no DC component and no baseline
wandering.
• None of these codes has error detection.

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 Bipolar - AMI and Pseudo-ternary
• Code uses 3 voltage levels:- +, 0, -, to represent the
symbols (note not transitions to zero as in RZ).
• Voltage level for one symbol is at “0” and the other
alternates between + & -.
• Bipolar Alternate Mark Inversion (AMI) - the “0”
symbol is represented by zero voltage and the “1”
symbol alternates between +V and -V.
• Pseudoternary is the reverse of AMI.

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 Bipolar - AMI and Pseudo-ternary

Bipolar schemes: AMI and pseudoternary

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 Bipolar - AMI and Pseudo-ternary
• It is a better alternative to NRZ.
• Has no DC component or baseline wandering.
• Has no self synchronization because long runs
of “0”s results in no signal transitions.
• No error detection.

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 Summary of line coding schemes
• Mapping of binary information sequence into the digital
signal that enters the channel
• Ex. “1” maps to +A square pulse; “0” to –A pulse
• Line code selected to meet system requirements:
• Transmitted power: Power consumption
• Bit timing: Transitions in signal help timing recovery
• Bandwidth efficiency: Excessive transitions wastes bw
• Low frequency content: Some channels block low frequencies
• long periods of +A or of –A causes signal to “droop”
• Waveform should not have low-frequency content
• Error detection: Ability to detect errors helps
• Complexity/cost: Is code implementable in chip at high speed?

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 Summary of line coding schemes

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 References
• Lathi B.P. “Modern Digital and Analog
Communication Systems” Oxford Publications,Fourth
Edition
• Taub H.,Schilling D.L.,Saha G. “Taub’s Principle of
Communication Systems”, McGraw-Hill, Third edition
• Forouzan B. A, “Data Communications and
Networking”, McGraw-Hill, 2nd Ed., 2000

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