A New Line Code for a Digital Communication System

Abstract

Acoustic sensor arrays can be wired to a central processor, responsible for logging the payload. To avoid several lines and connectors, a single transmission line is preferred to transfer all the data between the multiple sensors. In this work, a low-complexity communication link is developed to enable communication between multiple sensors, and one master controller. The objective of this project is to optimize the point-to-point link performance using specific front-end requirements. For this purpose, data recovery of the multiple nodes will be required, and the distortion of the signal due to cable bandwidth limitations will be mitigated using line coding. In digital communications systems, digital data represented as ’0’ and ‘1’, are abstract quantities and need to be converted into electrical waveforms for effective transmission or storage. How to perform such a conversion is generally governed by many factors, of which the most important one is the available transmission bandwidth of the communication channel. In digital communication systems, a problem that is often faced is of the limited transmission bandwidth which can take the form of different components including narrowband front-ends, coupling transformers, as well as long cables. Various line codes have been developed to shape the spectrum of the transmit signal. This thesis proposes a new line code, the Quadrature Code (or Quad Code) that increases the transmission rate and maintains reliability. Its PSD, SNR, eye pattern and bit error rate are compared to other standard line codes including the fundamental Non-Return-to-Zero (NRZ), Manchester, delay modulation, and 8B/10B.