GATE MODEL QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

1. The minimum sampling frequency (in samples/sec) required to reconstruct the following
3

sin 21000t
sin 21000t
signal from its samples without distortion X t 5
7

t
t

would be
(a) 2 103
(b) 4 103
(c) 6 103
(d) 8 103
[GATE-2006]
2. The minimum step-size required for a Delta-Modulator operating at 32 K samples/sec to
track the signal (here u (t) is the unit-step function)
x t 125t u t u t 1 250 125t u t 1 u t 2
So that slope-overload is avoided, would be
(a) 210
(b) 28
(c) 26
(d) 24
[GATE-2006]
3. A zero-mean white Gaussian noise is passed through an ideal lowpass filter of bandwidth
10 kHz. The output is then uniformly sampled with sampling period tS = 0.03 msec. The
samples so obtained would be
(a) correlated
(b) statistically independent
(c) uncorrelated
(d) orthogonal
[GATE-2006]

4. A source generates three symbols with probabilities 0.25, 0.25, 0.50 at a rate of 3000
symbols per second. Assuming independent generation of symbols, the most efficient
source encoder would have average bit rate as
(a) 6000 bits/sec
(b) 4500 bits/sec
(c) 3000 bits/sec
(d) 1500 bits/sec [GATE-2006]
5. The diagonal clipping in Amplitude Demodulation (using envelope detector) can be
avoided if RC time-constant of the envelope detector satisfies the following condition,
(here W is message bandwidth and S is carrier frequency both in rad/sec)
1
1
(a) RC
(b) RC
W
W
1
1
(c) RC
(d) RC
[GATE-2006]

6. In the following figure the minimum value of the constant C, which is to be added to
y1(t) such that y1 (t) and y2(t) are different, is

(a)
(c)

2
12

(d)
L

(b)

[GATE-2006]

GATE MODEL QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

7. A message signal with bandwidth 10 kHz is Lower-Side Band SSB modulated with
carrier frequency fC1 = 106 Hz. The resulting signal is then passed through a NarrowBand Frequency Modulator with carrier frequency fC2 = 109 Hz.
The bandwidth of the output would be:
(a) 4 104 Hz
(b) 2 106 Hz
(c) 2 109 Hz
(d) 2 1010 Hz
[GATE-2006]
Common Data for Questions 8, 9:
Let g(t)=p(t)*p(t), where * denotes convolution and p t u t u t 1 lim with u (t )
x

being the unit step function

8. The impulse response of filter matched to the signal is s t g t t 2 *g t given
as:
(a) s(1 t)
(b) s(1 t)
(c) s(t)
(d) s(t)
[GATE-2006]
9. An Amplitude Modulated signal is given as x AM 100 p t 0.5g t cos c t in the
interval 0 t 1. One set of possible values of the modulating signal and modulation
index would be
(a) t, 0.5
(b) t, 1.0
(c) t, 2.0
(d) t 2 , 0.5
[GATE-2006]
Statement for Linked Answer Questions 10 & 11:
The following two questions refer to wide sense stationary stochastic processes
10. It is desired to generate a stochastic process (as voltage process) with power spectral
16
density S
, By driving a Linear-Time-Invariant system by zero mean white
16 2
noise (as voltage process) with power spectral density being constant equal to 1. The
system which can perform the desired task could be:
(a) first order low pass R-L filter
(b) first order high pass R-c filter
(c) tuned L-C filter
(d) series R-L-C filter
[GATE-2006]
11. The parameters of the system obtained in Q.7 would be
(a) First order R-L low pass filter would have R = 4W L = 4H
(b) First order R-C high pass filter would have R = 4W C = 0.25F
(c) Tuned L-C filter would have L = 4H C = 4F
(d) Series R-L-C low pass filter would have R = 1W, L = 4H, C = 4F
[GATE-2006]
Statement for Linked Answer Questions 12 & 13:
Consider the following Amplitude Modulated (AM) signal, where fm < B :
x AM t 10 1 0.5sin 2f m t cos 2f c t
12. The average side band power for the AM signal given above is:
(a) 25
(b) 12.5
(c) 6.25
(d) 3.125
[GATE-2006]

GATE MODEL QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

13. The AM signal gets added to a noise with Power Spectral Density Sn(f) given in the
figure below. The ratio of average sideband power to mean noise power would be:

25
25
(b)
8N 0 B
4N 0 B
25
25
(c)
(d)
[GATE-2006]
2N 0 B
N0B
14. If E denotes expectation, the variance of a random variable X is given by
(a) E x 2 E 2 x
(b) E x 2 E 2 x

(a)

(c) E x 2

(d) E2 x

[GATE-2007]

15. A Hilbert transformer is a

(a) Non-linear system
(b) non-causal system
(c) time-varying system
(d) low-pass system
[GATE-2007]
16. In delta modulation, the slope overload distortion can be reduced by
(a) decreasing the step size
(b) decreasing the granular noise
(c) decreasing the sampling rate
(d) increasing the step size
[GATE-2007]
17. The raised cosine pulse p(t) is used for zero ISI in digital communications. The
expression for p(t ) with unity roll-off factor is given by
1
sin 4 Wt
.The value of p(t) at t
is
pt
2 2
4W
4Wt 1 16W t
(a) 0.5
(b) 0
(c) 0.5
(d)
[GATE-2007]
18. In the following scheme, if the spectrum M(f) of m(t ) is as shown, then the spectrum
Y (f ) of y (t ) will be:

(a)

GATE MODEL QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

(b)

(c)

(d)

[GATE-2007]
19. During transmission over a certain binary communication channel, a bit error occurs
independently with probability p. The probability of AT MOST one bit in error in a
block of n bits is given by
(a) p n
(b) 1 p n
(c) np 1 p n

n 1

1 p n

(d) 1 1 p n

[GATE-2007]

20. In a GSM system, 8 channels can co-exist in 200 KHz bandwidth using TDMA. A GSM
based cellular operator is allocated 5 MHz bandwidth. Assuming a frequency reuse
factor of (1/5) ,i.e. a five-cell repeat pattern, the maximum number of simultaneous
channels that can exist in one cell is:
(a) 200
(b) 40
(c) 25
(d) 5
[GATE-2007]
3
21. In a Direct Sequence CDMA system the chip rate is 1.2288 10 chips per second. If the
processing gain is desired to be AT LEAST 100, the data rate
(a)Must be less than or equal to 12.288 103 bits per sec
(b) Must be greater than 12.288 103 bits per sec
(c) Must be exactly equal to 12.288 103 bits per sec
(d) Can take any value less than 12.288 103 bits per sec
[GATE-2007]
Common Data for Questions 22 & 23:
Two 4-ray signal constellations are shown. It is given that 1 and 2 constitute an
orthonormal basis for the two constellations. Assume that the four symbols in both the
N0
constellations are equiprobable. Let
denote the power spectral density of white
2
Gaussian noise.

GATE MODEL QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

22. The ratio of the average energy of Constellation 1 to the average energy of Constellation
2 is:
(a) 4a 2
(b) 4
(c) 2
(d) 8
[GATE-2007]
23. If these constellations are used for digital communications over an AWGN channel, then
which of the following statements is true?
(a) Probability of symbol error for Constellation 1 is lower
(b) Probability of symbol error for Constellation 1 is higher
(c) Probability of symbol error is equal for both the constellations
(d) The value of 0 N will determine which of the two constellations has a lower
Probability of symbol error.
[GATE-2007]
Statement for Linked Answer Questions 24 & 25:
An input to a 6-level quantizer has the probability density function f (x) as shown in the
figure. Decision boundaries of the quantizer are chosen so as t maximize the entropy of
the quantizer output. It is given that 3 consecutive decision boundaries are -1, 0 and
1.

24. The values of a and b are:

(a) a = 1/6 and b = 1/12
(b) a = 1/5 and b = 3/40
(c) a = 1/4 and b = 1/16
(d) a = 1/3 and b = 1/24
[GATE-2007]
25. Assuming that the reconstruction levels of the quantizer are the mid-points of the
decision boundaries, the ratio of signal power to quantization noise power is
152
64
(a)
(b)
9
3
76
(c)
(d) 28
[GATE-2007]
3
26. Consider the amplitude modulated (AM) signal A c cos c t 2 cos m t cos c t . For b
demodulating the signal using envelope detector, the minimum value of Ac should be
(a) 2
(b) 1
(c) 0.5
(d) 0
[GATE-2008]

GATE MODEL QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

27. A memory less source emits n symbols each with a probability p. The entropy of the
source as a function of n
(a) increases as log n
(b) decreases as log (1/n)
(c) Increases as n
(d) increases as n log n
[GATE-2008]
28. Noise with double-sided power spectral density of K over all frequencies is passed
through a RC low pass filter with 3dB cut-off frequency of f c . The noise power at the
filter output is
(a) k
(b) kf c
(c) kf c

(d)

[GATE-2008]

29. Consider a Binary Symmetric Channel (BSC) with probability of error being p. To
transit a bit, say 1, we transmit a sequence of three 1s. The receiver will interpret the
received sequence to represent 1 if at least two bits are 1. The probability that the
transmitted bit will be received in error is
(a) p3 3p2 1 p
(b) p 3
(c) 1 p
(d) p3 p2 1 p [GATE-2008]
30. Four messages band limited to W, W, 2W and 3W respectively are to be multiplexed
using Time Division Multiplexing (TDM). The minimum bandwidth required for
transmission of this TDM signal is
(a) W
(b) 3W
(c) 6W
(d) 7W
[GATE-2008]
31. Consider the frequency modulated signal 10
cos 2105 t 5sin 21500t 7.5sin 21000t with carrier frequency of 105 Hz.
3

The modulation index is

(a) 12.5
(c) 7.5
32. The signal cos C t 0.5cos m t sin c t is
(a) FM only
(b) AM only
(c) both AM & FM
(d) neither AM nor FM

(b) 10
(d) 5

[GATE-2008]

[GATE-2008]

Common Data Questions 33, 34 & 35:

A speech signal, band limited to 4 kHz and peak voltage varying between +5V and - 5V
is sampled at the Nyquist rate. Each sample is quantized and represented by 8 bits.
33. If the bits 0 and 1 are transmitted using bipolar pulses, the minimum bandwidth required
for distortion free transmission is
(a) 64 kHz
(b) 32 kHz
(c) 8 kHz
(d) 4 kHz
[GATE-2008]
34. Assuming the signal to be uniformly distributed between its peak values, the signal to
noise ratio at the quantizer output is
(a) 16dB
(b) 32dB
(c) 48dB
(d) 64dB
[GATE-2008]

GATE MODEL QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

35. The number of quantization levels required to reduce the quantization noise by a factor
of 4 would be
(a) 1024
(b) 512
(c) 256
(d) 64
[GATE-2008]
36. Suppose that the modulating signal is m t 2cos 2f mt and the carrier signal is
x c t Ac cos 2fc t which one of the following is a conventional AM signal without
over-modulation?
(a) x t Ac m t cos 2f c t

(b) x t A c 1 m t cos 2f c t
Ac
m t cos 2 f ct
4
(d) x t Ac cos 2f m t cos 2f c t Ac sin 2f m t sin 2f c t

(c) x t A c cos 2 f c t

[GATE-2010]
37. Consider an angle modulated signal x(t) = 6cos[2x106t+2sin(8000t) + 4cos(8000pt)]
V. The average power of x(t) is.
(a) 10W
(b) 18W
(c) 20W
(d) 28W
[GATE-2010]
38. Consider the pulse shape s(t) as shown. The impulse response h(t) of the filter matched
to this pulse is

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

[GATE-2010]

39. The Nyquist sampling rate for the signal

(a) 400Hz
(c) 1200Hz

st

sin 500t sin 700

is given by

t
t
(b) 600Hz
(d) 1400Hz

GATE MODEL QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

40. X(t) is a stationary process with the power spectral density Sx(f)>0 for all f. The process
is passed through a system shown below.

Let Sy(f) be the power spectral density of Y(t). Which one of the following statements is
correct?
(a) Sy(f)>0 for all f
(b) Sy(f)=0 for |f|>1kHz
(c) Sy(f)=0 for f=nf0, f0=2kHz, n any integer
(d) Sy(f)=0 for f=(2n+1)f 0,f0=1kHz, n any integer
[GATE-2010]
Statement for Linked Answer Questions: 41 & 42:
Consider a base band binary PAM receiver shown below. The additive channel noise
N
n(t) is whit with power spectral density s N f 0 10 20 W Hz . The low-pass filter is
2
ideal with unity gain and cut-off frequency 1MHz. Let YK represent the random
variable y(tK).
YK = NK
if transmitted bit bK = 0
YK=a + NK if transmitted bit bK = 1
Where NK represents the noise sample value. The noise sample has a probability
density function, PNK n 0.5e n | (This has mean zero and variance 2 2 ). Assume

6
a
transmitted bits to be equiprobable and threshold z is set to 2 10 V .

41. The value of the parameter (in V-1) is

(a) 1010
(b) 107
(c) 1.414 1010
(d) 2 1020
[GATE-2010]
42. The probability of bit error is
(a) 0.5 e3.5
(b) 0.5 e5
(c) 0.5 e7
(d) 0.5 e10
[GATE-2010]
43. Which of the following analog modulation scheme requires the minimum transmitted
power and minimum channel bandwidth?
(a) VSB
(b) DSB-SC
(c) SSB
(d) AM
[GATE-2005]

GATE MODEL QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

44. Refractive index of glass is 1.5. Find the wavelength of a beam of light with a frequency
of 1010 Hz in glass. Assume velocity of light is 3 108 m / s in vacuum.
(a) 3 m
(b) 3mm
(c) 2 m
(d) 1m
[GATE-2005]
2
45. A device with input x(t) and output y(t) is characterized by: y t x t .An FM signal
with frequency deviation of 90 kHz and modulating signal bandwidth of 5 kHz is applied
to this device. The bandwidth of the output signal is
(a) 370 KHz
(b) 190 KHz
(c) 380 KHz
(d) 95 KHz
[GATE-2005]
46. A signal as shown in figure is applied to a matched filter. Which of the following does
represent the output of this matched filter?

[GATE-2005]
(a)

(b)

(d)
(c)

47. Noise with uniform power spectral density of

N0 W

is passed through a filter

Hz
followed by an ideal low pass filter of bandwidth B Hz. The

H 2exp jt d
output noise power in Watts is
(a) 2N0B
(c) 8N0B

(b) 4N0B
(d) 16N0B

[GATE-2005]

GATE MODEL QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

48. A carrier is phase modulated (PM) with frequency deviation of 10 kHz by a single tone
frequency of 1 kHz. If the single tone frequency is increased to 2 kHz, assuming that
phase deviation remains unchanged, the bandwidth of the PM signal is
(a) 21 kHz
(b) 22 kHz
(c) 42 kHz
(d) 44 kHz
[GATE-2005]
49. An output of a communication channel is a random variable n with the probability
density function as shown in figure. The mean square value of n is

(a) 21 kHz
(c) 42 kHz

(b) 22 kHz
(d) 44 kHz

[GATE-2005]

Statement for Linked Answer Questions 50 & 51:

A symmetric three-level midtread quantizer is to be designed assuming equiprobable
occurrence of all quantization levels.
50. If the input probability density function is divided into three regions as shown in figure,
the value of a in the figure is

(a) 1/3
(b) 2/3
(c) 1/2
(d) 1/4
[GATE-2005]
51. The quantization noise power for the quantization region between a and +a in the figure
is
4
1
(a)
(b)
81
9
5
2
(c)
(d)
[GATE-2005]
81
81

GATE MODEL QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

1.
2.
3.
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50.

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c
b

GATE MODEL QUESTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

51. a