Noise in Communication Systems

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 Introduction
• With reference to an electrical system, noise may be defined as any unwanted form
of energy which tends to interfere with proper reception and reproduction of
wanted signal.
• Many disturbances of an electrical nature produce noise in receivers, modifying the
signal in an unwanted manner.
• In radio receivers, noise may produce hiss in the loudspeakers output.
• In television receivers ‘snow’ or ‘confetti’ (colored snow) becomes superimposed on
the picture.

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 Effects of Noise
• In pulse communication systems, noise may produce unwanted pulses or perhaps
cancel out the wanted ones.
• It affects the sensitivity of receivers, by placing a limit on the weakest signals that
can be amplified.
• Therefore, noise limits the range of systems, for a given transmitted power.
• Reduces the data rate of a system (Shannon channel capacity).

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Classification of Noise

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 Classification of Noise
• External noise cannot be reduced except by changing the location of the receiver or
the entire system.
• Internal noise on the other hand can be easily evaluated mathematically and can be
reduced to a great extent by proper design.
• Because of the fact that internal noise can be reduced to a great extent, study of
noise characteristics is a very important part of the communication engineering.

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 External Noise
• The noise whose sources are external to the receiver come under heading of
external noise and include atmospheric noise and extraterrestrial noise and man-
made or industrial noise.
• Types of external noise:
– Man-made noise
– Atmospheric noise
– Extraterrestrial noise

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 Atmospheric Noise
• Atmospheric noise is caused by lighting discharges in thunderstorms and other
natural electrical disturbances occurring in the atmosphere.
• These electrical impulses are random in nature.
• Atmospheric noise accordingly consists of spurious (unwanted) radio signals with
components spread over a wide frequency range.
• Hence the energy is spread over the complete frequency spectrum used for radio
communication (3 kHz to 300 GHz).

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 Atmospheric Noise
• The field strength of atmospheric noise varies approximately inversely with the
frequency.
• Thus large atmospheric noise is generated in low and medium frequency (broadcast)
bands while very little noise is generated in the VHF and UHF bands.
• Further VHF and UHF components of noise are limited short propagation distance
(less than about 80 Km).
• For these two-reasons, the atmospheric noise becomes less severe at Frequencies
exceeding about 30MHz.

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 Extraterrestrial Noise

• Solar Noise:
– This is the electrical noise emanating from the sun.
– This results because sun is a large body at a very high temperature (exceeding
6000°C on the surface), and radiates electrical energy in the form of noise over a
very wide frequency spectrum including the spectrum used for radio
communication.
– Example Impact:
• Radio Communication Disruption: Especially affects HF (3–30 MHz) and VHF (30–300 MHz) bands.
• GPS Signal Errors: Solar noise can interfere with satellite signals.

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 Extraterrestrial Noise

• Cosmic noise:
– Distant stars are also ‘suns’ and have high temperatures.
– These stars, therefore, radiate noise in the same way as our sun.
– We also receive noise from the center of our own galaxy (The Milky Way) from other distant
galaxies and from other virtual point sources such as quasars and pulsars.
– The noise received from these distant stars is thermal noise (or black body noise) and is
distributing almost uniformly over the entire sky.
– Example impact:
• Interference with radio communications: Especially in sensitive systems operating in the VHF (30–300
MHz) and higher bands.
• Cosmic noise sets a natural limit to the sensitivity of radio receivers. This is crucial to, for example,
deep-space communication (e.g., with spacecraft)

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 Man Made Noise
• By man-made noise or industrial- noise is meant the electrical noise produced by
such sources as automobiles and aircraft ignition, electrical motors and
switch gears, leakage from high voltage lines, fluorescent lights, and numerous
other heavy electrical machines.
• Such noises are produced by the arc (electrical) discharge taking place during
operation of these machines.
• Such man-made noise is most intensive in industrial and densely populated areas.
• Man-made noise in such areas far exceeds all other sources of noise in the
frequency range extending from about 1 MHz to 600 MHz

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 Internal Noise
• Under the heading of internal noise, we discuss noise created by any of the active or
passive (no external power) devices found in receivers.
• Such noise is generally random, impossible to treat on an individual voltage basis,
but easy to observe and describe statistically.
• Random noise power is proportional to the bandwidth over which it is measured.

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 Types of Internal Noise
• Thermal Noise
• Shot Noise
• Transit Time Noise
• Flicker Noise

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 Thermal Noise
• This is a fundamental type of electrical noise generated by the random motion of
electrons in a conductor due to heat.
• It’s present in all electronic devices and resistive components, even when no current
is flowing.
• Thermal noise is caused by the thermal agitation of charge carriers (usually
electrons) inside an electrical conductor  The higher the temperature, the more
vigorous this motion, and the more noise is produced.
• It is also known as Johnson-Nyquist noise

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 Thermal Noise
• Thermal noise is given by the following formula:

Where:
– = Maximum noise power output of a resistor.
– k = Boltzmann’s constant= 1.38 x10-23 Joules / Kelvin.
– T = Absolute temperature, K = 273+ 0
– B = Bandwidth over which noise is measured.

• Thermal noise power is also proportional to the bandwidth over which it is measured.

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 Shot Noise
• The most common type of noise is referred to as shot noise which is produced by
the random arrival of electrons or holes at the output element at the collector
• It appears as a randomly varying noise current superimposed on the output.
• Shot noise is also produced by the random movement of electrons or holes across a
PN junction  Even though current flow is established by external bias voltage, there
will still be some random movement of electrons or holes due to discontinuities in
the device.
• An example of such a discontinuity is the contact between the copper lead and the
semiconductor materials  The interface between the two creates a discontinuity
that causes random movement of the current carriers.

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 Transit Time Noise
• They are observed in the semiconductor devices when the transit time of a charge
carrier while crossing a junction is compared with the time period of that signal.
• The phase and amplitude of the current or voltage fluctuates due to variations in
when and how electrons arrive at different points in the device.
• These variations are random, which introduces noise in the output signal
• The transit time shows up as a kind of random noise within the device, and this is
directly proportional to the frequency of operation.
– At low frequencies this time is negligible.
– But when the frequency of operation is high and the signal being processed is the
magnitude as the transit time, then problems can occur.

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 Flicker Noise
• Flicker noise or modulation noise is the one appearing in transistors operating at low
frequencies.
• Different mechanisms dominate in different materials and device types:
– In MOSFETs: due to charge trapping and detrapping in the gate oxide near the channel.
– In BJTs: due to recombination of carriers in the base region.
• However, this noise is inversely proportional to the frequency.
• Hence it may be neglected at frequencies above about 500 Hz
• Therefore, possess no serious problem

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 Signal to Noise Ratio
• Noise is usually expressed as a power because the received signal is also expressed
in terms of power.
• By knowing the signal to noise powers the signal to noise ratio can be computed.
• Rather than express the signal to noise ratio as simply a number, it can be expressed
in terms of decibels.

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 Noise Figure
• Noise Figure F is designed as the ratio of the signal-to noise power supplied to the
input terminals of a receiver or amplifier to the signal-to-noise power to the output
or load resistor.
• In a practical receiver, the output signal-to-noise power will be lower than the input
value, and so the noise figure will exceed 1.
• However, the noise figure will be 1 for an ideal receiver, which introduces no noise
of its own.
• The noise figure may be expressed as an actual ratio or in decibels.

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 Noise Temperature
• Noise temperature is employed extensively for antennas and low-noise microwave
amplifiers.
• Not the least reason for its use is convenience, in that it is an additive like noise
power.
• Another advantage of the use of noise temperature for low noise levels is that it
shows a greater variation for any given noise-level change than does the noise
figure, so changes are easier to grasp in their true perspective.

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 Noise Temperature
• The relation between noise figure and equivalent noise temperature is
as follows:

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