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Modulation

The document discusses modulation, which is the process of varying a carrier signal according to a modulating signal in order to transmit information over long distances. Modulation involves imposing an input signal onto a carrier wave to encode information such as speech or data. Common modulation techniques are amplitude modulation and frequency modulation, which vary the amplitude or frequency of the carrier wave respectively. Modulation allows communication systems to transmit low frequency signals requiring large antennas by using higher frequency carrier waves.

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52 views

Modulation

The document discusses modulation, which is the process of varying a carrier signal according to a modulating signal in order to transmit information over long distances. Modulation involves imposing an input signal onto a carrier wave to encode information such as speech or data. Common modulation techniques are amplitude modulation and frequency modulation, which vary the amplitude or frequency of the carrier wave respectively. Modulation allows communication systems to transmit low frequency signals requiring large antennas by using higher frequency carrier waves.

Uploaded by

Lavanya_123
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Modulation is the process of varying one signal called the carrier according to the

pattern of modulating signal.

The concept of modulation (at the transmitter) and demodulation (at receiving side) is
the backbone of a communication system

If you want to throw a piece of paper at some distance, say 50 m then what will you do?
A very simple solution is that you wrap the paper on the stone and then throw it right.
So that is the philosophy of modulation. You modulate the carrier signal (stone) with
your information signal (paper) and then throw it using a transmitter so that your
information can travel to a longer distance. At the receiver side of the communication
system the demodulator separates the information signal from the carrier and then your
information signal is processed.

The size of the antenna required for transmission is inversely proportional to the
frequencies of transmitted signals. This means that low frequency signals need very
large antenna for transmission.

Voice – 0.1 KHz to 8 KHz

Music – 0.1 KHz to 16 KHz

Video – 10 KHz to 2 MHz

These ranges are unsuitable for any kind of transmission due to the requirement of
abnormally large sized antenna.

A carrier wave is a pure wave of constant frequency, a bit like a sine wave. By itself it
doesn’t carry much information that we can relate to (such as speech or data).
To include speech information or data information, another wave needs to be imposed,
called an input signal, on top of the carrier wave. This process of imposing an input
signal onto a carrier wave is called modulation. In other words, modulation changes the
shape of a carrier wave to somehow encode the speech or data information that we
were interested in carrying. Modulation is like hiding a code inside the carrier wave.

Any wave has three basic properties:

1) Amplitude – the height of the wave

2) Frequency – a number of waves passing through in a given second

3) Phase – where the phase is at any given moment.

There are different strategies for modulating the carrier wave. First, a user can tweak
the height of the carrier. If an input signal’s height varies with the loudness of a user’s
voice and then adds this to the carrier, then the carrier’s amplitude will change
corresponding to the input signal that’s been fed into it. This is called amplitude
modulation or AM.
Frequency of an input signal can also be changed. If this input signal is added to the pure
carrier wave, it will thereby change the frequency of the carrier wave. In that way, users
can use changes of frequency to carry speech information. This is called frequency
modulation or FM.

These two strategies can be combined to create a third scheme. In fact, any strategy that
combines an input signal with a carrier wave to encode speech or other useful
information is called a modulation scheme.
Modulation schemes can be analog or digital. An analog modulation scheme has an
input wave that varies continuously like a sine wave. In digital modulation scheme, it’s a
little more complicated. Voice is sampled at some rate and then compressed and turned
into a bit stream – a stream of zeros and ones – and this in turn is created into a
particular kind of wave which is then superimposed on the carrier.

In order to keep communication cheap and convenient and require less power to carry
as much information as possible, carrier systems with modulated carriers are used.

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