Analogue communications technologies

Question

What are the applications of analogue communication?

Answer

Analogue communication is a data transmitting technique that makes use of continuous signals to transmit data such as voice, images and video. An analogue signal is a variable signal, continuous in both time and amplitude, which due to the lack of quantization (constraining something from a continuous set of values to a smaller discrete set) in analogue circuits, is subject to random variation and degradation (Shanmugam, 1979).

There exist numerous applications of analogue communication, of which telecommunication is perhaps the most relevant. Telecommunication is based on the transmission of data via electromagnetic systems, such as radio, telephone, fiber optics, communication satellites and microwave transmission (Lathi, 1990).

Radio is the technology of using radio waves to transmit data through space by systematically modulating certain properties of electromagnetic energy waves. Once the waves reach their destination, an electrical conductor extracts the data by transforming the waves back into their original form. Furthermore, a telephone is a telecommunications device that converts sound into electronic signals, which are then transmitted via a certain media and turned back into audio at the destination point. Moreover, fiber-optic communication, first developed in the 1970s, is the process of transmitting information by sending pulses of light through an optical fiber. The light forms an electromagnetic wave that is modulated to carry data (Gibson, 1992). Microwave transmission involves the transmission of data or energy by electromagnetic waves with very short wavelengths. Microwaves are largely used in different types of radio transmission such as radars and deep space radio communication. Finally, communication satellites are devices used to relay and amplify radio signals, thus creating a communication channel between different points on Earth.

References

Gibson, J.D. (1992) Principles of digital and analog communication, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

Lathi, B.P. (1990) Modern digital and analog communication systems, New York: Oxford University Press.

Shanmugam, K.S. (1979) Digital and analog communication systems, New York: Wiley.