Abstract
The literature describing the energy needs for a communications channel has been dominated by analyses of linear electromagnetic transmission, often without awareness that this is a special case. This case leads to the conclusion that an amount of energy equal to kT ln 2, where kT is the thermal noise per unit bandwidth, is needed to transmit a bit, and more if quantized channels are used with photon energies h ν > kT . Alternative communication methods are proposed to show that there is no unavoidable minimal energy requirement per transmitted bit. These methods are invoked as part of an analysis of ultimate limits and not as practical procedures.
Keywords
Energy (signal processing)Bandwidth (computing)Channel (broadcasting)Transmission (telecommunications)Transmission channelComputer sciencePhotonThermalTelecommunicationsElectronic engineeringPhysicsOpticsEngineeringQuantum mechanics
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
Information capacity and power control in single-cell multiuser communications
We consider a power control scheme for maximizing the information capacity of the uplink in single-cell multiuser communications with frequency-flat fading, under the assumption...
Switched diversity with feedback for DPSK mobile radio systems
Switched diversity with feedback for differential phase shift keying (DPSK) mobile radio is discussed. The technique uses multiple transmit antennas at the base station but only...
Errata to "space-time codes for high data rate wireless communications: performance criteria in the presence of channel estimation errors, mobility, and multiple paths"
Space-time coding is a bandwidth and power efficient method of communication over fading channels that realizes the benefits of multiple transmit antennas. Specific codes have b...
Space-time codes for high data rate wireless communication: performance criteria in the presence of channel estimation errors, mobility, and multiple paths
Space-time coding is a bandwidth and power efficient method of communication over fading channels that realizes the benefits of multiple transmit antennas. Specific codes have b...
Increasing data rate over wireless channels
Space-time coding (STC) is a new coding/signal processing framework for wireless communication systems with multiple transmit and multiple receive antennas. This new framework h...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1996
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 272
- Issue
- 5270
- Pages
- 1914-1918
- Citations
- 195
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
195
OpenAlex
Cite This
Rolf Landauer
(1996).
Minimal Energy Requirements in Communication.
Science
, 272
(5270)
, 1914-1918.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.272.5270.1914
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.272.5270.1914