Mini Project Communication Link Simulation

Digital Modulation Techniques

Author: University of Hertfordshire
Date created:
Date revised: 2009
Abstract
The following resources come from the 2009/10 BEng (Hons) in Digital Communications & Electronics (course number 2ELE0064) from the
University of Hertfordshire. All the mini projects are designed as level two modules of the undergraduate programmes.
The objective of this module is to have built communication links using existing AM modulation, PSK modulation and demodulation blocks,
constructed AM modulators and constructed PSK modulators using operational function blocks based on their mathematical expressions, and
conducted simulations of the links and modulators, all in Simulink.
Use Matlab/ Simulink to design a communication link for AM audio broadcasting. The message signal is a mono audio signal although you may
not be able to transmit the full audio frequency range that is normally required for high quality sound.
In addition to the resources found below there are supporting documents which should be used in combination with this resource. Please see:
Mini Projects - Introductory presentation.
Mini Projects - E-Log.
Mini Projects - Staff & Student Guide.
Mini Projects - Standard Grading Criteria.
Mini Projects - Reflection.
You will also need the Mini Project- Communication Link Simulation text file and the lecture presentation on Channels and Noise.

Mini Project- USB Tempera

University of Hertfordshire 2009 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

Contents

Digital Bandpass Modulation

Modulation
Types of modulation
Digital Modulation
Digital Modulation Carrier
Four main modulation techniques
Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)
Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)
Phase Shift Keying (PSK)
PSK: Phasor or vector diagrams (constellation diagram)
BPSK: Phasor or vector diagram (constellation diagram)
Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) - Phasor or vector d...
M-ary Phase Shift Keying (MPSK) - Phasor or vector diagram
PSK General Expression
QPSK Implementation
Reliability & Efficiency
Spectral efficiency and transmitted power trade-off
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)
Reading list
Credits

Digital Bandpass Modulation

Digital modulation techniques

Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)

Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)
Phase Shift Keying (BPSK, QPSK)
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)

Comparison with regards to:

Reliability (power), Efficiency (bandwidth)

Modulation
What is modulation?
Modulation is the process by which
message signals are transformed into
higher frequency waveforms that are
compatible with the characteristics of
the channel

Why modulate?

Message signals need to be matched to the

characteristics of channels
Subsequent advantages of modulation:
Enables efficient economic communication
methods to be used as the sharing of
communication resources is made possible
(signals can be combined using frequency
division multiplexing - FDM)
Efficient antennas of reasonable physical size to
be constructed for radio communication systems
5

Types of modulation
M o d u la t io n
A n a lo g u e M o d u la t io n

D ig it a l M o d u la t io n

Modulation
techniques for
analogue signals

Modulation
techniques for
digital signals

Digital Modulation

Digital modulation is the process by

which digital symbols are transformed
into waveforms that are compatible
with the characteristics of the channel
To carry out digital modulation, we
need:
A digital message or information or
modulating signal, and
A sinusoid carrier wave or simply a
carrier

N.B.: The carrier is always of much higher

frequency than the modulating signal
7

Digital Modulation - Carrier

General form of the carrier wave is

c(t ) A cos( t )

where
c
c
c
Ac = amplitude in volts (V)
c = angular or radian frequency in rads -1
c = phase in radian (rad)
Alternatively, since

where fc

2f
(t ) Acincos(
2(Hz)
f c t c )
=c
frequency
hertz
8

Digital Modulation - Carrier

c(t ) Ac cos(c t c ) Ac cos(2f c t c )
1
The period of the carrier, Tc seconds
fc
c(t)

+A

Tc

-A

In digital modulation, one of the properties of the

carrier (amplitude, frequency or phase) is changed
according to the modulating (or information or
message) signal

Four main modulation techniques

D ig ita l M o d u la tio n
A m p litu d e
S h ift K e y in g
ASK

F re q u e n c y
S h ift K e y in g
FSK

Changing
Changing
frequency
amplitude
(Ac) of carrier (fc) of carrier
according to according to
modulating
modulating
signal
signal

P hase
S h ift K e y in g
PSK

Q u a d ra tu re
A m p litu d e
M o d u la tio n ( Q A M )

Changing
phase (c) of
carrier
according to
modulating
signal

Combination
of ASK and
PSK

10

Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)

ASK amplitude of carrier is changed
according to the modulating signal
ASK modulator can be
represented by the
schematic diagram on
the right

y (t ) m(t ) c(t )

m(t)

y(t)

c(t)

m(t): modulating signal (baseband signal)

c(t): carrier wave (high frequency cosine)
y(t): modulated signal ASK signal
(bandpass signal)

11

Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK) ctd

Binary ASK also called on-off keying (OOK)
Data stream:

Information
or message
or baseband
data
Carrier wave
or carrier

OOK waveform
(bandpass
signal)
12

Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)

FSK frequency of carrier is changed
according to modulating signal
Binary FSK (BFSK) represents ones
and zeros by carrier pulses of two
distinct frequencies, f1 and f2
Binary zero frequency f1
Binary one frequency f2
13

Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) ctd

Data stream:

Information
or message
or baseband
data
Carrier wave
or carrier

BFSK waveform
(bandpass
signal)
14

Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) ctd

BFSK signal can be
considered as the
combination of two OOK
signals:
1) One representing the
baseband data stream
{m(t)}modulated onto a
carrier with frequency f1,
and
2) One representing the
inverse data stream
{m(t)} modulated onto a
carrier with frequency f2

c1(t)=A cos(2f1t)
m(t)

m(t)

BFSK
signal

c2(t)=A cos(2f2t)
Schematic of BFSK
modulator: as the
combination of two OOK
signals
15

Phase Shift Keying (PSK)

PSK phase of carrier is changed
according to modulating signal

c(t ) Ac cos(2f c t c )
c(t)
+A

Tc
-A

One period,Tc

Equivalent to a complete
turn phase angle

1 complete turn phase

angle = 2 rad (=360)
16

Phase Shift Keying (PSK) ctd

c(t)

c= 0 rad (=0)

c(t+ /2)

c= /2 rad (=90)
t

c(t+

c(t+ 3/2)

c= rad (=180)

c= 3/2 rad (=270)

17

Phase Shift Keying (PSK) ctd

PSK phase of carrier is changed
according to modulating signal

c(t ) Ac cos(2f c t c )
Binary PSK (BPSK) represents ones
and zeros by shifting the phase by 1
and 2
Binary zero phase 1 (0 rad or 0)
Binary one phase 2 ( rad or 180)

18

Phase Shift Keying (PSK) ctd

Data stream:

Information
or message
or baseband
data
Carrier wave
or carrier

BPSK waveform
(bandpass
signal)
19

PSK: Phasor or vector diagrams

(constellation diagram)
=/2 rad
=90

=0 rad =0

= rad

= 2 rad =360

=180

=3/2 rad
=270
20

BPSK: Phasor or vector diagram

(constellation diagram)
Binary: two possible states m1 and m2
Euclidean
distance: distance
between two
message points

=/2

Decision region 2

Decision boundary

Decision region 1

m2

m1

=0

=3/2
21

Quadrature Phase Shift Keying

(QPSK) - Phasor or vector diagram
Quadrature: four possible states m1, m2,m3 and m4
=/2

Decision boundary

Decision region 2

m2

Decision region 1

Decision region 3

m3

m1

=0

m4
Decision region 4
Decision boundary

=3/2

22

M-ary Phase Shift Keying (MPSK) Phasor or vector diagram

M-ary: M possible states m1, m2, m3, mM
Region 3

Region 4

Signal
constellation
for 8-PSK

=/2

Region 2

m3
m4
=
Region 5

m2

m5

m1
m6

Region 6

m8

=0
Region 1

m7

=3/2
Region 7

Region 8
23

PSK General Expression

The general analytic expression of PSK is more

popularly written as

2E
mi (t )
cos c t i (t )
T

E is the symbol energy and T is the information signals symbol

time duration. i=1, 2, ..M.
Phase term i(t) has M discrete values given by

2i
i (t )
M

BPSK, M=2; QPSK, M=4; 8-PSK, M=8; etc

24

PSK Coding
BPSK: each state (m1, m2) is
represented by one digit (0, 1)
QPSK: each state (m1, m2, m3, m4)
is represented by two digits (00, 01,
10, 11)
8PSK: each state is presented by
three digits (000, 001, 010, 011,
100, 101, 110, 111)
Etc

25

QPSK Implementation

By expanding the general expression, QPSK can be

implemented in the following way.
In QPSK the information bit stream is divided to form
two streams, in-phase (I) and in quadrature (Q),
comprising of the even and odd bits of the original
information signal respectively
Since each transmitted symbol is represented by two
successive binary pulses, the symbol rate of the I and
Q waveforms is half the bit rate of the information
signal (Rs=Rb/log2M).
Subsequently the bipolar I and Q streams are used to
modulate the components of a carrier frequency in
quadrature
Modulation of each orthogonal carrier follows a DSB-SC-AM
mode resulting in two BPSK signals
26

QPSK Circuit Diagram

Two carriers are inphase quadrature.

In the case of the inphase data stream, the phase of the cosine carrier is
shifted, at symbol transitions, between 0 o and 180o
Equivalently the quadrature data stream shifts the phase of the sine
function between 90o and 270o
The modulated signals are combined linearly to produce the QPSK
waveform (t)=0o, 90o, 180o and 270o

27

Reliability & Efficiency

Reliability of scheme: how likely are
errors; this is related to the
Euclidean distance
Expressed by the BER versus SNR
(Eb/No): What is the probability of
error?
Efficiency: measure of the data rate
Expressed by the number of bits per
symbol

28

Reliability & Efficiency ctd

As M increases, the Euclidean
distance decreases
Hence, the probability of error
increases; therefore the reliability
decreases
As M increases, data rate increases
Hence the efficiency increases
Trade-off between reliability and
efficiency to be considered

29

Spectral efficiency and

transmitted power trade-off

For the same system bandwidth a

quadrature modulation scheme can
transmit twice the data rate achievable
with its binary counterpart
The superior performance of M-level
signaling by means of higher achievable
transmission rates for a given channel
bandwidth is achieved in the expense of
increased transmitted power (better SNR)
for a required reliability (BER).
30

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

(QAM)
Also known as Amplitude Phase
Keying (APK)
Combination of ASK and PSK
8-QAM
16-QAM

31

Reading list
Sklar, B., (2001), Digital
Communications: Fundamentals and
Applications, Prentice Hall, 2nd
Edition: sections 4.1 4.2
Glover, I.A & Grant P.M., (2004),
Digital Communications, Pearson
Prentice Hall, 2nd Edition: sections
11.1 11.3

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This resource was created by the University of Hertfordshire and released as an open educational resource through the Open Engineering
Resources project of the HE Academy Engineering Subject Centre. The Open Engineering Resources project was funded by HEFCE and part
of the JISC/HE Academy UKOER programme.

University of Hertfordshire 2009

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

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