Digital Bandpass Modulation Techniques

Digital modulation is the process through which digital signals are transformed
into waveforms that are compatible with the characteristics of the channel.

In the case of digital pass band communication, the digital information signal
modulates a sinusoid (carrier wave)

Reasons for modulation:

 To enable efficient transmission of the message signal through the

communication channel.

 To enable multiplexing i.e. simultaneous transmission of several

signals over a communication link.

Digital Band pass Modulation Techniques

• Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)

• Phase Shift Keying (PSK)

• Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)

• M-ary Modulation schemes(multilevel signaling)

Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)

• In this modulation technique the binary data modulates the amplitude of the carrier
signal .

• Advantage: Simplicity

• Disadvantage: ASK is very susceptible to noise interference as noise affects the

amplitude.

• ASK is used in optical communication systems.

ASK Modulator

Asynchronous ASK detector

Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)

• In this modulation technique the binary data modulates the frequency of the carrier
signal

• advantage: FSK is less susceptible to errors than ASK

• Disadvantage: FSK spectrum is twice that of ASK .

FSK generator block diagram

Non Coherent FSK demodulator block diagram

Coherent FSK demodulator block diagram

Phase Shift Keying (PSK)

• In PSK the binary data modulates the phase of the carrier signal

PSK generator block diagram

 Coherent PSK detector block diagram

• advantage: PSK is less susceptible to errors than ASK, while it occupies the same
bandwidth as ASK

• More efficient use of bandwidth (higher data-rate are possible, compared to FSK .

• disadvantage: more complex signal detection process required, than in ASK and FSK

Differential Modulation

• In differential modulation each symbol is modulated relative to the previous symbol and
modulating signal.

BPSK 0 = no change, BPSK 1 = +1800 phase change

• The advantage of DPSK is that the need for a coherent reference signal at the receiver is
eliminated

Coherent vs No coherent

Coherent detection requires knowledge of the carrier signal phase at the receiver while non-
coherent does not and is therefore more complex but gives a better performance.

Coherent Detection techniques can be used for

– Phase Shift Keying (PSK)

– Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)

 – Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)

Noncoherent Detection techniques can be used for

– Differential Phase Shift Keying (DPSK)

– Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)

– Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)

M-ary signaling scheme

• In M-ary signaling scheme each symbol or signal represents 2 or more bits.

• There are M= 2k possible signals each representing k bits where k is an integer

• Symbols s1(t) ,s2(t),s3(t),……sM(t) each representing k bits are transmitted

• Bit rate=k symbol rate(baud rate)

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)

• In Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) the modulated waveform is a combination

of both phase-shift keying (PSK) and amplitude-shift keying (ASK)

• PSK modulators are often implemented using the QAM principle but are not considered
QAM as the amplitude of the modulated carrier signal is constant.

• The advantage of using QAM is that it carries more bits of information per symbol.

• With higher order format of QAM, the bit rate of a link can be increased thus increasing
spectral efficiency.

• However higher order QAM modulation schemes are considerably more susceptible to
noise and interference as the distance between symbols becomes smaller.
Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK)

• In Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) 2 bits are transmitted in a single symbol.

• QPSK has twice the bandwidth efficiency of BPSK.

• The phase of the carrier takes on 1 of 4 equally spaced values, such as where each value
of phase represents a unique combinations of two bits i.e. 00,01,10 and 11.

QPSK generator block diagram

Offset Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (OQPSK)

In QPSK there could be +/-180 degree transitions if both bits change the phase at the same time
this requires inefficient linear amplifiers.

OQPSK prevents 180 degree phase transitions by shifting one stream by a half bit period and
allowing only one bit to change between the transitions.
OQPSK generator block diagram

QPSK Demodulation

At the receiver the received signal is multiplied by cos ωt and sin ωt .The multiplied output is
integrated over one bit period using an integrator? A threshold detector makes a decision on
each integrated bit based on threshold.The even bits and the odd bits are combined to produce
the original bit stream.

QPSK Demodulator block diagram

MSK

Minimum-shift keying (MSK) is a continuous-phase frequency-shift keying similar to OQPSK. In

MSK there are no phase discontinuities because the frequency changes occur at the carrier zero
crossing points.
Sharp transitions between “one” and “zero” states create sidebands outside the allowed
bandwidth causing interference to adjacent channels
MSK is encoded such that the Q component delayed by half the symbol period and each bit is
encoded as a half sinusoid. The difference between the higher and lower frequency is identical
to half the bit rate.

GMSK

In Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying, the signal to be modulated is passed through a gaussian
filter before being passed on to the MSK modulator. The filter should have a sharp cut-off,
narrow bandwidth and its impulse response should have no overshoot.

Advantages of GMSK modulation

improved spectral efficiency when compared to other phase shift keying techniques.
it can be amplified by a non-linear amplifier.
Since information is not carried as amplitude it is immune to amplitude variations and
therefore more resilient to additive noise.

Constellation Diagrams

A constellation diagram is a representation of a modulated signal by a digital modulation

scheme in a two-dimensional scatter plot in the complex plane.

The modulated carrier representing each symbol is created by adding a cosine wave
representing the in-phase carrier (I) and the quadrature carrier (Q) a sine wave.

The angle of the vector measured counterclockwise from the “I” axis represents the phase
shift of the carrier wave from a reference phase. The length of the vector represents amplitude
of the signal.
BPSK Constellation Diagram

QPSK Constellation Diagram (with gray coding)

8-PSK constellation diagram

16 QAM constellation diagram

Performance Comparison of Modulation Types

Modulation Format Bandwidth efficiency Error-free Eb/N0

C/B

16 PSK 4 18dB

16 QAM 4 15dB

8 PSK 3 14.5dB

4 PSK 2 10dB

4 QAM 2 10dB

BFSK 1 13dB

BPSK 1 10.5dB