Outline

• What is noise?
• White noise and Gaussian noise
• Lowpass noise
• Bandpass noise
– In-phase/quadrature representation
– Phasor representation
p

• References
– Notes of Communication Systems, Chap. 2.
– Haykin & Moher, Communication Systems, 5th ed., Chap. 5
– Lathi, Modern Digital and Analog Communication Systems, 3rd ed.,
Chap. 11

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 Noise
• Noise is the unwanted and beyond our control waves that
disturb the transmission of signals.
g
• Where does noise come from?
– External sources: e.g., atmospheric, galactic noise, interference;
– Internal sources: generated by communication devices themselves.
• This type of noise represents a basic limitation on the performance of
electronic communication systems
systems.
• Shot noise: the electrons are discrete and are not moving in a
continuous steady flow, so the current is randomly fluctuating.
• Thermal
Th l noise:
i caused
d by
b the
th rapid
id andd random
d motion
ti off electrons
l t
within a conductor due to thermal agitation.
• Both are often stationaryy and have a zero-mean Gaussian
distribution (following from the central limit theorem).

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 White Noise
• The additive noise channel
– n(t)
( ) models all types
yp of noise
– zero mean
• White noise
– Its power spectrum density (PSD) is constant over all frequencies,
i.e., N
SN ( f )  0 ,   f  
2
– Factor 1/2 is included to indicate that half the power is associated
with positive frequencies and half with negative.
– The term white is analogous to white light which contains equal
amounts of all frequencies (within the visible band of EM wave).
– It
It’s
s only defined for stationary noise.
noise
• An infinite bandwidth is a purely theoretic assumption.

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 White vs. Gaussian Noise
• White noise PSD
SN(f) Rn()

N0
– Autocorrelation function ofn (t ) : Rn ( )  ( )
2
– Samples
S l att different
diff t time
ti instants
i t t are uncorrelated.
l t d
• Gaussian noise: the distribution at any time instant is
Gaussian
Gaussian
– Gaussian noise can be colored PDF
• White noise  Gaussian noise
– White noise can be non-Gaussian
• Nonetheless, in communications, it is typically additive
white Gaussian noise (AWGN).
(AWGN)
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 Ideal Low-
Low-Pass White Noise
• Suppose white noise is applied to an ideal low-pass filter
of bandwidth B such that
 N0
 , | f | B Power PN = N0B
SN ( f )   2
0, otherwise
• By
B Wiener-Khinchine
Wi Khi hi relation,
l i autocorrelation
l i function
f i
Rn( ) = E[n(t)n(t+ )] = N0B sinc(2B ) (3.1)
where sinc(x) = sin(x)/x.
x
• Samples at Nyquist frequency 2B are uncorrelated
Rn( ) = 0,
0 = k/(2B),
k/(2B) k = 1,
1 2,2 …

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 Bandpass Noise
• Any communication system that uses carrier modulation will typically
have a bandpass filter of bandwidth B at the front-end of the receiver.

n(t)
• Anyy noise that enters the receiver will therefore be bandpass
p in nature:
its spectral magnitude is non-zero only for some band concentrated
around the carrier frequency fc (sometimes called narrowband noise).

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 Example
• If white noise with PSD of N0/2 is passed through an ideal
bandpass
p filter,, then the PSD of the noise that enters the
receiver is given by
 N0
 , f  fC  B
SN ( f )   2
0, otherwise

Power PN = 2N0B

• Autocorrelation function
Rn( ) = 2N0Bsinc(2B )cos(2fc )
– which follows from (3.1) by g (t )  G ( )
applying
l i ththe ffrequency-shift
hift
g ( t )  2 cos 0t  [ G (  ) G(  )]
property of the Fourier transform 0 0

• Samples taken at frequency 2B are still uncorrelated

uncorrelated.
Rn( ) = 0, = k/(2B), k = 1, 2, …
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 Decomposition of Bandpass Noise
• Consider bandpass noise within f  fC  B with any PSD
((i.e.,, not necessarilyy white as in the previous
p example)
p )
• Consider a frequency slice ∆f at frequencies fk and −fk.
• For ∆f small:
n k ( t )  a k cos( 2 f k t  k )
– θk: a random p phase assumed independent
p and uniformly
y
distributed in the range [0, 2)
– ak: a random amplitude.
∆f

-ffk fk

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 Representation of Bandpass Noise
• The complete bandpass noise waveform n(t) can be
constructed by summing up such sinusoids over the entire
band i.e.,
band, ie
n(t )   nk (t )   ak cos(2 f k t  k ) f k  f c  k f (3.2)
k k

• Now, let fk = (fk − fc)+ fc, and using cos(A + B) = cosAcosB −

sinAsinB we obtain the canonical form of bandpass
noise
i
n(t )  nc (t ) cos(2 f c t )  ns (t ) sin( 2 f ct )
where
nc (t )   ak cos( 2 ( f k  f c )t  k )
k (3.3)
ns (t )   ak sin(2 ( f k  f c )t  k )
k
– nc(t) and ns(t) are baseband signals,
signals termed the in-phase
in phase and
quadrature component, respectively.
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 Extraction and Generation
• nc(t) and ns(t) are fully representative of bandpass noise.
– (a)
( ) Given bandpass
p noise,, one mayy extract its in-phase
p and
quadrature components (using LPF of bandwith B). This is
extremely useful in analysis of noise in communication receivers.
– (b) Given the two components,
components one may generate bandpass noise. noise
This is useful in computer simulation.

nc(t) nc(t)

ns(t) ns(t)

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 Properties of Baseband Noise
• If the noise n(t) has zero mean, then nc(t) and ns(t) have
zero mean.
• If the noise n(t) is Gaussian, then nc(t) and ns(t) are
Gaussian.
• If the noise n(t) is stationary, then nc(t) and ns(t) are
stationary.
• If the noise n(t) is Gaussian and its power spectral density
S( f ) is symmetric with respect to the central frequency fc,
th nc(t)
then d ns(t)
( ) and ( ) are statistical
t ti ti l independent.
i d d t
• The components nc(t) and ns(t) have the same variance (=
power) as n(t). )

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 Power Spectral Density
• Further, each baseband noise waveform will have the
same PSD:
 S N ( f  fc )  SN ( f  fc ), | f | B (3.4)
Sc ( f )  S s ( f )  
0, otherwise

• This is analogous to
g (t )  G ( )
g (t )2 cos 0t  [G (  0 )  G(  0 )]
– A rigorous
g p
proof can be found in A. Papoulis,
p , Probability,
y, Random
Variables, and Stochastic Processes, McGraw-Hill.
– The PSD can also be seen from the expressions (3.2) and (3.3)
where each of nc(t) and ns(t) consists of a sum of closely spaced
base-band sinusoids.

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 Noise Power
• For ideally filtered narrowband noise, the PSD of nc(t)
and ns((t)) is therefore g
given byy Sc(f)=Ss(f)

 N 0 , | f | B
Sc ( f )  S s ( f )   (3.5)
0, otherwise

• Corollary: The average power in each of the baseband

waveforms
f nc(t) d ns(t)
( ) and ( ) is
i identical
id ti l to
t the
th average power
in the bandpass noise waveform n(t).
noise the variance of nc(t)
• For ideally filtered narrowband noise,
and ns(t) is 2N0B each.
PNc = PNs = 2N0B
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 Phasor Representation
• We may write bandpass noise in the alternative form:
n(t )  nc (t ) cos(2 f ct )  ns (t ) sin(2 f ct )
 r (t ) cos[2 f ct  (t )]
– r (t )  nc (t ) 2  ns (t ) 2 : the envelop of the noise

 ns ( t ) 
– 1
(t )  tan   : the p
phase of the noise
 nc (t ) 

θ( ) ≡ 2 fct + (t)
θ(t) ()

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 Distribution of Envelop and Phase
• It can be shown that if nc(t) and ns(t) are Gaussian-
distributed,, then the magnitude
g r(t)
( ) has a Rayleigh
y g
distribution, and the phase (t) is uniformly distributed.

• What if a sinusoid Acos(2 fct) is mixed with noise?

• Then the magnitude
g will have a Rice distribution.

• The p proof is deferred to Lecture 11,, where such

distributions arise in demodulation of digital signals.

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 Summary
• White noise: PSD is constant over an infinite bandwidth.
• Gaussian noise: PDF is Gaussian.
Gaussian
• Bandpass noise
– In-phase
In phase and quadrature compoments nc(t) and ns(t) are low
low-pass
pass
random processes.
– nc(t) and ns(t) have the same PSD.
– nc(t) and ns(t) have the same variance as the band-pass noise n(t).
– Such properties will be pivotal to the performance analysis of
bandpass communication systems.
• The in-phase/quadrature representation and phasor
representation
p are not onlyy basic to the characterization of
bandpass noise itself, but also to the analysis of bandpass
communication systems.

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