"Scrambling is a way of eliminating undesired long sequences of 0 or 1 at the
transmitting end which is then undone at the receiver end and that is to achieve better
synchronization"
Personal input
In telecommunications a scrambler (also referred to as a randomizer) is a device that
manipulates a data stream before transmitting. The manipulations are reversed by a
descrambler at the receiving side. Scrambling is widely used in satellite, radio relay
communications and PSTN modems. A scrambler can be placed just before a FEC
coder, or it can be placed after the FEC, just before the modulation or line code. A
scrambler in this context has nothing to do with encrypting, as the intent is not to
render the message unintelligible, but to give the transmitted data useful engineering
properties.
A scrambler replaces sequences into other sequences without removing undesirable
sequences, and as a result it changes the probability of occurrence of vexatious
sequences. Clearly it is not foolproof as there are input sequences that yield all-zeros,
all-ones, or other undesirable periodic output sequences. A scrambler is therefore not
a good substitute for a line code, which, through a coding step, removes unwanted
sequences.
Purposes of scrambling
There are two main reasons why scrambling is used:
It facilitates the work of a timing recovery circuit (see also Clock recovery), an
automatic gain control and other adaptive circuits of the receiver (eliminating
long sequences consisting of '0' or '1' only).
It eliminates the dependence of a signal's power spectrum upon the actual
transmitted data, making it more dispersed to meet maximum power spectral
density requirements (because if the power is concentrated in a narrow
frequency band, it can interfere with adjacent channels due to the cross
modulation and the intermodulation caused by non-linearities of the receiving
tract).
Types of scramblers
Additive (synchronous) scramblers
Multiplicative (self-synchronizing) scramblers
Additive (synchronous) scramblers
Additive scramblers (they are also referred to as synchronous) transform the input
data stream by applying a pseudo-random binary sequence (PRBS) (by modulo-two
addition). Sometimes a pre-calculated
PRBS stored in the Read-only memory
is used, but more often it is generated
by a linear feedback shift register
(LFSR).
In order to assure a synchronous
operation of the transmitting and
receiving LFSR (that is, scrambler and
descrambler), a sync-word must be
used.
A sync-word is a pattern that is placed in the data stream through equal intervals (that
is, in each frame). A receiver searches for a few sync-words in adjacent frames and
hence determines the place when its LFSR must be reloaded with a pre-defined initial
state.
The additive descrambler is just the same device as the additive scrambler.
Additive scrambler/descrambler is defined by the polynomial of its LFSR (for the
scrambler on the picture above, it is 1 + x − 14 + x – 15) and its initial state.
Multiplicative (self-synchronizing) scramblers
Multiplicative scramblers (also known
as feed-through) are called so because
they perform a multiplication of the
input signal by the scrambler's transfer
function in Z-space. They are discrete
linear time-invariant systems. A
multiplicative scrambler is recursive and
a multiplicative descrambler is non-
recursive. Unlike additive scramblers,
multiplicative scramblers do not need
the frame synchronization, that is why
they are also called self-synchronizing.
Multiplicative scrambler/descrambler is
defined similarly by a polynomial (for
the scrambler on the picture it is 1 + x −
18
+ x − 23), which is also a transfer
function of the descrambler.
Comparison of scramblers
Scramblers have certain drawbacks:
Both types may fail to generate random sequences under worst case input
conditions.
Multiplicative scramblers lead to error multiplication during descrambling (i.e.
a single bit error at the descrambler's input will result into w errors at its
output, where w equals the number of the scrambler's feedback taps).
Additive scramblers must be reset by the frame sync; if this fails massive error
propagation will result as a complete frame cannot be descrambled.
The effective length of the random sequence of an additive scrambler is
limited by the frame length, which is normally much shorter than the period of
the PRBS. By adding frame numbers to the frame sync, it is possible to extend
the length of the random sequence, by varying the random sequence in
accordance with the frame number.
Ref.: www.wikipedia.com
