We represent a bit by associating one of two specific analog
signals with the bit's value. Thus, if
bn=0
b
n
0
, we transmit the signal
s
0
t
s
0
t
; if
bn=1
b
n
1
, send
s
1
t
s
1
t
. These two signals comprise the signal set for
digital communication and are designed with the channel and bit
stream in mind. In virtually every case, these signals have a
finite duration TT
common to both signals that is known as the bit
interval. A commonly used example of a signal set
consists of pulses that are negatives of each other.
s
0
t=A
p
T
t
s
0
t
A
p
T
t
(1)
s
1
t=-A
p
T
t
s
1
t
A
p
T
t
(2)
Here, we have a baseband signal set suitable for wireline
transmission. The entire bit stream
bn
b
n
is represented by a sequence of these signals. Mathematically,
the transmitted signal has the form
xt=∑n-1bnA
p
T
t-nT
x
t
n
n
-1
b
n
A
p
T
t
n
T
(3)
and graphically
Figure 2 shows what
a typical transmitted signal might be.
This way of representing a bit stream—changing the bit
changes the sign of the transmitted signal—is known as
binary phase shift keying and abbreviated
BPSK. Here is an attempt to explain the nomenclature: The word
binary is clear enough (one binary-valued quantity is
transmitted during a bit interval); changing the sign of
sinusoid amounts to changing — shifting — the phase
by π (although we don't
have a sinusoid yet); and the word "keying" reflects back to the
first electrical communication system, also for digital
communications: the telegraph.
The datarate RR of a digital
communication system is how frequently an information bit is
transmitted. In this example it equals the reciprocal of the bit
interval:
R=1T
R
1
T
. Thus, for a 1 Mbps (megabit per second) transmission, we must
have
T=1μs
T
1
μs
.