Digital Communication System

Let us study the components of Digital Communication

• Source: A source is the device that feeds the input signal into the system for processing. This can be a microphone, signal generator, or any other device capable of producing a signal.
• Transducer: The transducer is a device needed for generating electrical signals from the input signal. These electronic signals are important since data can’t be transferred in any form and needs to be converted into some sort of signal.
• Source Encoder: A Source Encoder is used for encoding data by compressing it into bits that can help in reducing the bandwidth needed for transmission.
• Channel Encoder: During the transmission of data, errors are bound to get introduced therefore, a channel encoder is needed to eliminate errors due to noise. It intentionally adds some redundant bits that can be removed at the end.
• Digital Modulator: The modulation of the signal is performed by a Digital Modulator. This is necessary to convert the signal into a format that can be easily transmitted in a medium.
• Channel: This is the midway component in the system that helps to pass the signal from the transmitter end to the receiver end.
• Digital Demodulator: Once the signal has reached the receiver end, the signal needs to be converted from digital to analog form. This reconstruction of a signal is known as demodulation and is performed by the demodulator.
• Channel Decoder: Just like the channel encoder, the Channel Decoder is used for correction of errors at the receiver end. These errors are corrected using the redundant bits added.
• Source Decoder: This step is necessary to obtain a proper digitized signal therefore steps like sampling and quantizing are performed in the source decoder.
• Output Transducer: This part involves the conversion of an electronic signal into a physical form that can be perceived by the device. Loudspeakers are a type of output transducer.
• Output Signal: The final step is the collection of Output Signal that is generated after the entire process.

With the development of electronics engineering, a need was felt to introduce a system that would help in the transfer of analog signals efficiently by converting them to digital form. This domain of electronics engineering is known as digital communication. In this article, we will study what Digital Communication is and what components make up Digital Communication.

Later, we will study the classification system in Digital Communication and the characteristics of this system. We will also study Digital Communication systems’ advantages, disadvantages, and applications. The article concludes with some frequently asked questions for readers.