Telecommunications Engineering

John Dunlop, D. Geoffrey Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780748740444
• eBook ISBN: 9781351411646
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Civil Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Since the publication of the second edition of this highly acclaimed textbook, telecommunications has progressed at a rapid rate. Major advances continue to occur in mobile communications and broadband digital networks and services, sophisticated signal processing techniques are prevalent at increasingly higher bit rates, and digital systems are widespread. These developments need to be addressed in a textbook that bridges the gap in the current knowledge and teachings of telecommunications engineering.

Telecommunications Engineering, 3rd Edition offers an introduction to the major telecommunications topics by combining an analytical approach to important concepts with a descriptive account of systems design. Completely updated and expanded, this third edition includes substantial material on integrated services digital networks, mobile communications systems, metropolitan area networks, and more.

What's New in the 3rd Edition

New chapter on mobile communications covering first generation analog and second generation digital systems

Expanded chapter on non-linear coding of voice waveforms for PCM

New section on NICAM

Updated chapter on the transient performance of the phase locked loop

Revised chapter on recent major developments in satellite television

New introduction to coding techniques for burst errors

Extended chapter on ISDN and broadband digital communications

Supplemented with worked problems, numerous illustrations, and extensive references to more advanced material, this textbook provides a solid foundation for undergraduate students of electrical, electronic, and telecommunications engineering.

Signals and channels

1

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Telecommunication engineering is concerned with the transmission of information between two distant points. Intuitively we may say that a signal contains information if it tells us something we did not already know. This definition is too imprecise for telecommunications studies, and we shall devote a section of this chapter to a formal description of information. For the present it is sufficient to say that a signal that contains information varies in an unpredictable or random manner. We have thus specified a primary characteristic of the signals in telecommunications systems; they are random in nature.

These random signals can be broadly subdivided into discrete signals that have a fixed number of possible values, and continuous signals that have any value between given limits. Whichever type of signal we deal with, the telecommunication system that it uses can be represented by the generalized model of Fig. 1.1. The central feature of this model is the transmission medium or channel. Some examples of channels are coaxial cables, radio links, optical fibres and ultrasonic transmission through solids and liquids. It is clear from these examples that the characteristics of channels can vary widely. The common feature of all channels, however, is that they modify or distort the waveform of the transmitted signal. In some cases the distortion can be so severe that the signal becomes totally unrecognizable.

In many instances it is possible to minimize distortion by careful choice of the transmitted signal waveform. To do this the telecommunications engineer must be able to define and analyse the properties of both the signals and the channels over which they are transmitted. In this chapter we shall concentrate on the techniques used in signal and linear systems analysis, although we should point out that many telecommunications systems do have non-linear characteristics.

1.2 THE FREQUENCY AND TIME DOMAINS

The analysis of linear systems is relatively straightforward if the applied signals are sinusoidal. We have already indicated that the signals encountered in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface to the third edition
• Preface to the second edition
• Preface to the first edition
• List of symbols and abbreviations
• 1 Signals and channels
• 2 Analogue modulation theory
• 3 Discrete signals
• 4 Noise in analogue communications systems
• 5 Noise in digital communications systems
• 6 High-frequency transmission lines
• 7. Antennas
• 8 Active microwave devices
• 9 Passive microwave devices
• 10 Telephony
• 11 Television systems
• 12 Optical fibre communications
• 13 Packet switched networks
• 14 Satellite communications
• 15 Mobile communication systems
• Appendix A Four-figure Bessel functions
• Appendix B Useful trigonometric identities
• Appendix C Normal error function
• Appendix D Blocked-calls-cleared (Erlang B)
• Index