Lecture 5: Digital Modulation

Techniques

Modulation
Modulation is the process of encoding information from a
message source in a manner suitable for transmission.
The ultimate goal of a modulation technique is to transport the
message signal through a radio channel with the best possible
quality while occupying the least amount of radio spectrum.

Modulation
Modulation may be done by varying the amplitude, phase, or
frequency of a high frequency carrier in accordance with the
amplitude of the message signal.

As such, there are 3 main types of digital modulation schemes

Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)
Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)
Phase Shift Keying (PSK)
Other modulation schemes can be derived from the 3 main schemes

IQ signal representation
In digital communications,
modulation is often expressed
in terms of I and Q.
This is a rectangular
representation of the polar
diagram. On a polar diagram,
the I axis lies on the zero
degree phase reference, and
the Q axis is rotated by 90
degrees.
The signal vectors projection Magnitude of Signal:
onto the I axis is its I
component and the projection
Phase of Signal:
onto the Q axis is its Q
component.

S= I+Q
I
j = tan
Q
-1

I and Q components in a digital transmitter

The Q component is passed
through a phase shifter to
make the signal components
orthogonal/in-quadrature
to each other hence avoid
interference.
The main advantage of I/Q
modulation is the symmetric
ease of combining
independent signal
components into a single
composite signal and later
splitting such a composite
signal into its independent
component parts.

This simplifies the design of digital radios

I and Q components in a digital transmitter

At the receiver, The composite
input signal (in terms of
magnitude and phase) is
broken into an in-phase, I, and
a quadrature, Q, component.
These two signal components
are independent and
orthogonal.

Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)

Amplitude is changed in response to information. Bit 1 is
transmitted by a signal of one particular amplitude and
to transmit bit 0, we change the amplitude keeping
frequency constant. (ex. On-Off Keying, OOK, which is a
special form of ASK).
Baseband information sequence
0010110010

ASK(t) = s(t) sin(2p f t)

ASK demonstrates poor performance, as it is heavily affected by noise and

interference.
Pulse shaping can be employed to remove spectral spreading

Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)

In FSK we change the frequency in response to information.
One particular f1 for a bit 1 and another f0 for a bit 0.

FSK can be expanded to a M-ary scheme, employing multiple frequencies as

different states
The bandwidth occupancy in FSK is dependent on the spacing of the two
symbols. A frequency spacing of 0.5 times the symbol period is typically used.

Phase Shift Keying (PSK)

In PSK, we change the phase of the sinusoidal carrier. To
transmit 0, we shift the phase of the sinusoidal by 180
degrees.

PSK(t) =

sin (2p f t)
for bit 1
sin (2p f t+p) for bit 0

Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) demonstrates better performance than

ASK and FSK. PSK can be expanded to a M-ary scheme, employing multiple
phases and amplitudes as different states.

Filtering can be employed to avoid spectral spreading.

Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK)

The phase of a constant amplitude carrier signal moves between 0
and 180 degrees.
Q

Symbol
S1
S2

On the I Q diagram,the I state has two different values.

There are two possible locations in the state diagram, so a
binary 0 or 1 can be sent.
(symbol rate = 1bit/symbol)

Bit
0
1

Expression
(2Es/T ) cost

(2Es/T)cos(t+

Carrier

I
1
-1

Q
0
0

Es- Transmitted energy per bit which is given by Es=1/2 * Ac^2*T, Ac is the
signal amplitude

BPSK Modulator
Assume the random bit stream 0110110.

Next are shown the first few symbols

from this bit stream. The Q channel
for BPSK is 0 so ignore it. The
modulator assigns a certain symbol
to the I channel depending on the bit
to be sent.

11

Bit

Symbol

0
1
1
0
1
1
0

S1
S2
S2
S1
S2
S2
S1

-1
1
1
-1
1
1
-1

0
0
0
0
0
0
0

BPSK Modulator Contd

Now a carrier of frequency fc is used to create the packet of signal. In
order to create the correct modulated signal the carrier is multiplied with
the I channel amplitude values.
0
1
1
0
1
1
0

-1
1
1
-1
1
1
-1

x cos(t) =

s1
s2
s2
s1
s2
s2
s1

The first column contains the bits. These are mapped to amplitudes of the I
channels by the BPSK mapping rules. These are then multiplied by a
cosine wave which is held for symbol time T. This results in a packet of
analog signals called the symbol. The frequency of the cosine wave is
called carrier frequency.

12

Quadrature PSK (QPSK)

Quadrature PSK (QPSK) is used extensively in applications including
CDMA cellular networks, Iridium and DVB-S (digital video
broadcasting-satellite)
Quadrature means that the signal shifts between phase states which
are separated by 90 degrees.
Quadrature Phase Shift Keying is effectively two independent BPSK
systems (I and Q), and therefore exhibits the same performance but
twice the bandwidth efficiency

Mapping rules for QPSK

Symbol

Bits

S1

00

2Es cos(t+/4)

01

2Es sin(t+3/4)

11

2Es cos(t+3/4)

S2

S3

S4

14

10

Expression

2Es sin(t+/4)

Phase
(deg.)

Carrier signal

45

1
2

1
2

135

1
2

1
2

225

1
2

1
2

315

1
2

1
2

Constellation diagram of QPSK

In the constellation
diagram, each adjacent
symbol only differs by one
bit.
QPSK can encode two bits
per symbol hence may be
used either to double the
data rate compared to a
BPSK system while
maintaining the bandwidth
of the signal or to maintain
the data-rate of BPSK but
halve the bandwidth
needed.

Offset QPSK (OQPSK)

This is used in the cellular CDMA (Code Division Multiple
Access) system for the reverse (mobile to base) link.
In QPSK, the I and Q bit streams are switched at the same time.
The symbol clocks, or the I and Q digital signal clocks, are
synchronized.
However, in OQPSK, the I and Q bit streams are offset in their
relative alignment by one bit period (one half of a symbol
period) as shown in the diagram.
Since the transitions of I and Q are offset, at any given time
only one of the two bit streams can change values. This creates
a different constellation, even though there are still just two
I/Q values. This has power efficiency advantages.

Offset QPSK (OQPSK)

The spectral efficiency is the same with two I states and two Q
states. The reduced amplitude variations (perhaps 3 dB for OQPSK,
versus 30 to 40 dB for QPSK) allow a more power-efficient, less
linear RF power amplifier to be used.

Disadvantages of Offset QPSK

(OQPSK)
OQPSK introduces a delay of half a symbol into the
demodulation process. In other words, using OQPSK
increases the temporal efficiency of normal QPSK.
This is due to the reason that the in phase and quadrature
phase components of the OQPSK cannot be simultaneously
zero. Hence, the range of the fluctuations in the signal is
smaller.
An additional disadvantage is that the quiescient power is
nonzero, which may be a design issue in devices targeted for
low power applications.

Minimum Shift Keying (MSK)

Minimum shift keying (MSK) is a special type of continuous phasefrequency shift keying (CPFSK) with a modulation index, h=0.5,
which corresponds to the minimum frequency spacing that allows
two FSK signals to be coherently orthogonal.
As such, minimum shift keying implies the minimum frequency
separation (i.e. bandwidth) that allows orthogonal detection.
Binary data may consist of sharp transitions between 1" and 0"
states and vice-versa, which may potentially create signals that
have sidebands extending out of the carrier bandwidth.
This may create problems for many radio communications
systems, as any sidebands extending outwards from the main
carrier bandwidth cause interference to the adjacent channels.

Minimum Shift Keying (MSK)

MSK modulation ensures that the modulating data signal changes
the frequency of the signal with no phase discontinuities.
This arises as a result of the unique factor of MSK that the
frequency difference between the logical one and logical zero
states is always equal to half (0.5) the data rate. This can be
expressed in terms of the modulation index, and it is always equal
to 0.5.

Minimum Shift Keying (MSK)

In a traditional FSK modulation system with frequency f0 and f1 and
used to transmit message m=0 and m=1 over period Tb second. The
respective message symbols are given by;

Assuming that f0>f1>0, and if we choose frequencies such that in each

time interval TB, there is an integer number of periods Tb, then;

Where k0 and k1 are integers.

Minimum Shift Keying (MSK)

In MSK, f0 and f1 are chosen such that there is an integer number
of periods, Tb to ensure signal continuity.

Fig 1. Discontinuous
signal

Fig 2. Discontinuous
phase signal

Fig 3. Continuous phase

signal

Minimum Shift Keying (MSK)

MSK can be derived from OQPSK by making one further change OQPSK I
and Q channels use square root-raised cosine pulses. For MSK, change the
pulse shape to a half-cycle sinusoid.

MSK pulse and carrier for a 1 bit

MSK pulse and carrier for a 0 bit

The carrier signal expression for MSK is:

Red curve = Carrier signal

Blue curve = MSK pulse shape
Black curve = multiplication of the pulse shape and the carrier giving the modulated carrier.
The underlined portion of the mathematical expression for MSK is the half-sinusoid pulse shape.
23

Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK)

GMSK is a modification of MSK scheme. A pre-modulation filter is
used to reduce the bandwidth of a baseband pulse train prior to
modulation. The filter limits the instantaneous frequency
variations of the MSK signal resulting to a signal with much
narrower bandwidth.
However, pre-filtering may cause intersymbol interference (ISI) of
the signal pulses due to smearing effect. Therefore, in GMSK
applications, there is always a trade-off between power efficiency
and bandwidth efficiency.

Generation of GMSK modulation

Method 1
Involves the use of a Gaussian low-pass filter to filter the
modulating signal before being passed through a frequency
modulator with modulation index set at 0.5.

This method is very simple to implement. However, it is very

difficult to accurately maintain modulation index of the FM at 0.5.

Generation of GMSK modulation

Method 2
Involves the use of a quadrature modulator that use a 90 degrees
phase-shifter to ensure that the I-Q signal components are
orthogonal.

The modulation index can be accurately maintained at 0.5 without

the need for adjustments. This makes this method more preferred

Advantages of GMSK modulation

Higher spectral efficiency
Allows the use of non-linear amplifiers without causing any form
of signal distortion No amplitude variations on the signal
A GMSK signal is immune to noise interference as a result of
amplitude variations
Applications of GMSK
Mobile communication systems such as;
GSM
Digital European Cordless Telephone (DECT)
Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD)
Digital Communications System (DCS1800) in Europe
GSM-based Personal Communications System (PCS1900) in the US

Multi-level (M-ary) modulation schemes

A M-ary symbol can be realized by grouping m consecutive binary bits together.
As such, the number of possible modulating symbols is M=2m and the symbol
period (duration) is T= m.Tb
The objective is to improve system data rate without increasing bandwidth by
increasing the number of bits per symbol. However, they are more prone to noise
effects
8-PSK
For 8PSK, m=3 and there are 8 possible phase shifts (at intervals of45 degrees) which
allow 3 bits to be transmitted per each symbol. The signal constellation diagram is as
follows;

8-PSK

16-PSK
16 PSK transmits 4 bits per symbol

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)

In order to increase the distance between points in the signal
constellation, another option is to modulate both the amplitude and
the phase. This is called Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM).

8 QAM

QAM signals can be extended to

much higher bit rates .
64-QAM and 256-QAM are
common in cable modems,
satellites, and high-speed fixed
broadband wireless.

Applications of digital modulation schemes

Modulation scheme

Application

MSK, GMSK

GSM, CDPD

BPSK

Deep space telemetry, cable modems

QPSK, /4 DQPSK

Satellite, CDMA, NADC, TETRA, PHS, PDC, LMDS,

DVB-S, cable (return path), cable modems, TFTS

0QPSK

CDMA, satellite

FSK, GFSK

DECT, paging, RAM mobile data, AMPS, ERMES,

land mobile, public safety

8PSK

Satellite, aircraft, telemetry pilots for monitoring

broadband video systems

16 QAM

Microwave digital radio, MMDS

32 QAM

Terrestrial microwave, DVB-T

64 QAM

DVB-C, modems

256 QAM

Modems, DVB-C Europe

Spectral Efficiency
Refers to a measure of how fast data can be transmitted over a
given bandwidth.
It is measured in bits per second per hertz (bps/Hz).
Typical Spectral Efficiency values

Bit Error Rate (BER)

Refers to the ratio of the number of bit errors to the number of
bits transmitted
The channel signal-to-noise (S/N) also affects the spectral
efficiency of the system.
The larger the amount noise present (lower S/N ratio), the greater
the number of bit errors.
Generally, the basic modulation schemes (BPSK, QPSK) have a
higher immunity to noise that the more complex constellations.

Shannon Hartley Capacity Theorem

For error free communication, the capacity of a system which uses an
Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel can be expressed as
follows;
fb/W = log2(1 + Ebfb/W) Shannon-Hartley Capacity Theorem
where fb = Capacity (bits per second)
W = bandwidth of the modulating baseband signal (Hz)
Eb = energy per bit
= noise power density (watts/Hz)
thus Ebfb = total signal power
W = total noise power
fb /W = bandwidth efficiency (bits per second per Hz)