Communication

Systems

Transmission Loss
& Link Budget
By
Engr. Jawwad Ahmad (Ph.D.)

1
 Today’s Goal
 Link Budget

 Link Budget Analysis

 Radio Transmission

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 2


Transmission Loss
Over the channel the signal undergoes attenuation due to loss.
 Normally, the loss over the channel is exponential and is given
by
Pr  g Pt Pr
Pt
 where g
  L 
 
g  10  10 
 α = attenuation coefficient
 L = communication path length

Problem

A channel has attenuation of 2dB/Km. Calculate power received

when transmitted power is 100mW. Total communication path
length is 10Km. [Pr = 1mW]
Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 3
 Link Budget
 Connectivity between transmitter and receiver is known as link
while the term budget reflects the power and its allocation that
is distributed on all over the system.
 Some specific channel attenuations are
 Pair of wire 3mm diameter has 0.05dB/Km at 1KHz.

 Twisted pair cable 2dB/Km at 10KHz.

 Coaxial cable 1.5dB/Km at 100MHz.

 Optical Fiber is 10dB/Km at 4 x 1014Hz.

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 4

 Link Budget
 Sensitivity of receiver has minimum power.
 Transmit Power is the sum of sensitivity and loss which is
known as Link budget equation.

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 5

 Link Budget Analysis
 The analysis of link budget is employed to ensure that the
transmitted signal will reach to destination, despite attenuation in
its way.
 Receiver cannot sense the signal below a pre-determine value
(threshold) of power called sensitivity.

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 6

 Link Budget Analysis
 If transmitter cannot provide the required power, repeater
(boosters) are installed in between the communication link.

 A repeater is a device that receives a signal on an

electromagnetic or optical transmission medium and
regenerates the signal to extend coverage to
enable communications over far greater distances.

 Link budget analysis can determine the location of repeats,

then number and gain of each repeater.

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 7

 Link Budget Analysis
 Since the power gains multiply in a cascade network, therefore
the link budget equation gives as
 g2 g4 
Pout   g1 g 2 g 3 g 4  Pin    Pin
 L1 L3 
 In general,
 g1 g 2 g 3 g 4  
Pout    Pin
 L1 L2 L3 L4  
 Which becomes the dB equation,

Pout (dB)  Pin (dB)  g1 (dB)  g 2 (dB)  g 3 (dB)  g 4 (dB)    g m (dB)

 L1 (dB)  L2 (dB)  L3 (dB)  L4 (dB)    Ln (dB)

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 8

 Link Budget Analysis
m n
Pout (dB)  Pin (dB)   g i (dB)   Lk (dB)
i 1 k 1

 There are three types of dB,

 dBw use for power.

 dBm use for reference signal as 1mW.

 dBi use for isotropic antenna.

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 9

 Link
PROBLEM
Budget Analysis
 A communication link is shown in the given diagram.

P L1 P P L2 P P
t O1 g1 O2 O3 g2
r
ℓ ℓ
 Total1communication path length is 2
40Km while transmitter
emits 0.5W. The received power is required to be 100mW. The
channel attenuation coefficient is 2dB/Km and sensitivity of
each repeater is 20μW. Find location and gain of each repeater.

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 10

 PROBLEM
Link Budget Analysis
 Pt = 0.5W = 500mW = 27dBm
 Pr = 0.1W = 100mW = 20dBm
 PO1 = PO3 = 20μW = –17dBm
 α = 2dB / Km

 Let repeater gains are g1 and g2 as shown and attenuations of

path ℓ1 and ℓ2 are L1 and L2, respectively.

 Now, for the 1st repeater PO1  Pt  L1  Pt  1

 So, 1st repeater is at Pt  PO1 27  17
1    22 Km
 2

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 11

 PROBLEM
Link Budget Analysis
 And , for the 2nd repeater
2  40 Km  1  40 Km  22 Km  18Km
 Gains of the repeaters can be computed as
g 2  Pr  PO 3 For Gain subtract input
g 2  20  17  37 dB from output (backward) and
 Also for Loss subtract output
g1  PO 2  PO1 from input (forward).
 But

 So PO 2  PO 3  L2  PO 3  2  17   2  18  19dB

g1  19  (17)  36dB

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 12

Radio Transmission Or Wireless Link
 Signal transmission by radio-link can reduce the number of
repeaters, and has the additional advantage of eliminating long
cables.
 There are different modes of radio-link, like ground-wave
propagation, direct or line-of-sight propagation and sky-wave
propagation.

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 13

 Here, line-of-sight (LOS) propagation is shown in the
diagram.

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 14

 Radio Transmission Or Wireless Link
 This propagation mode is commonly employed for long-
distance communication at frequencies above 100MHz.
 The free-space loss on a LOS is due to spherical dispersion of
the radio-wave, and is given by
2 2
 4   4 f  
L   
    c 
 where λ is the wavelength, ℓ is the distance between
transmitter and receiver, f is the signal frequency, and c is the
speed of EM-wave.

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 15

Radio Transmission Or Wireless Link
 If ℓ and f are express in Kilometer and Gigahertz, respectively,
then above equation can be re-written in log scale as

LdB  92.4  20 log 10 f GHz  20 log 10  KM

Problem
In Satellite communication link the frequency is 2GHz. Calculate
the free space loss as the signal reaches the Satellite by covering
the path length equals to 40,000Km.
[190.4dB]

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 16

Thank you

Engr. Dr. Jawwad Ahmad 17