EEE 309 Communication Systems I

Semester: Jan 2022

Suzit Hasan Nayem

Lecturer
Department of EEE, BUET

Email: [email protected]
Office: ECE 913(C), ECE Building
 Part 01:
Introduction to
Communication Systems

2
 Multitude of Communications
Communication: Transfer of information
● Telephone network
● Internet
● Radio and TV broadcast
● Wireless mobile communications
● Wi-Fi
● Satellite communications
● Deep-space communications
● Smart power grid, healthcare…
● Analogue communications
– AM, FM
● Digital communications
– Transfer of information in digits
– Dominant technology today
– Broadband, DSL, ADSL, 3G, 4G

3
 History of Communication: Early
● Before human beings createdstage
languages
and alphabets, they communicated with
both sound and body language
● They have used smoke and light for
communication
● Drawing is also used for communication
at the early stage

4
 History of Communication: Developing
Technology

● 1799: Alessandro Volta invented

electric battery

● 1831: Professor Joseph Henry,

Albany, NY – Ring a bell at a
distance by connecting and
disconnecting wires

5
 History of Communication(Wired Communication)

● 1837: Samuel Morse

demonstrated telegraph
● 1844: First telegraph line
(Washington-Baltimore) became
operational
● Sent electronic signals using
wires
● Morse devised a language with
a series of long and short signals
that represented letters and
numbers Original Samuel Morse telegraph
6
 History of communication
● 1854: 25,000 miles of telegraph wires have been laid
across the US
– Train schedules, weather, important news
● 1864: A telegraph line spans the entire continental US
– Western Union is formed
Very costly
Trans Atlantic Telegra0phic line -1857 but failed

7
 History of communication(Wireless Communication)

● 1864: Maxwell formulated

the electromagnetic (EM)
theory

● 1875: Bell invented the

telephone

● 1887: Hertz demonstrated

physical evidence of EM
waves
- Hertz demonstrated the Alexander Graham
wave character of electrical Bell
transmission through space (1847-1922)

8
 History of communication
● 1890- 1900: Guglielmo Marconi
- first demonstration of wireless telegraphy
➢ Across Atlantic Ocean
➢ From Cornwall to Canada

- long wave transmission

- high transmission power necessary (> 200kw)

9
 History of communication
TITANIC, MARCONI AND THE WIRELESS
TELEGRAPH
● The new mode of transmission had to compete with existing cable networks.

● Marconi sold his earliest systems to lighthouses and ships, which could not access the
cable network and yet had most need of rapid communication.

● By the time of Titanic’s maiden voyage in 1912, most passenger ships operating in the
north Atlantic had a Marconi installation staffed by Marconi Company operators

10
 History of communication

● 1907: Commercial radio broadcast

- huge base stations
● 1918: Armstrong invented superheterodyne radio receiver
(and FM in 1933)
● 1921: land-mobile communication

12
 History of communication
● 1928: Nyquist sampling theorem
●1947: Microwave relay system
● 1948: Information theory
● 1957: Era of satellite communication began
● 1966: Kuen Kao pioneered optical fibre communications (Nobel
Prize Winner)
- Now backbone communication is based on optical fiber
● 1970’s: Era of computer networks began
● 1981: Analog cellular system (1G)
● 1988: Digital cellular system lunched in Europe
● 1992: Start of GSM (2G)
13
 History of communication
● 1996: HiperLAN (up to 155Mbit/s)
● 1997: Wireless LAN - IEEE802.11
- IEEE standard, 2.4 - 2.5GHz
and infrared, 2Mbit/s
● 1999: Standardization of additional
wireless LANs
- IEEE standard 802.11b, 2.4-
2.5GHz, 11Mbit/s
- Bluetooth for pico nets, 2.4Ghz,
<1Mbit/s
● 2000: 3G network
● 2005: WiMax sandardized
• Not implemented in north
America or Europe
• In the recent years, some
countries in Asia and Africa
implemented WiMax
● 2008: 4G LTE

14
Top Telecom Manufacturers (Vendors)

15
 Basic Communication System

Speech
Music
Pictures
PC

● Communication involves the transfer of information from one

point to another through a succession of processes

● Three basic elements

– Transmitter: converts message into a form suitable for transmission
– Channel:
➢ the physical medium which transports the message signal and delivers it to a receiver
➢ introduces attenuation, distortion, noise, interference
– Receiver: reconstruct a recognizable form of the message
16
 Challenges in Communication
● Channel impairments:
Attenuation, Distortion, Noise, Multi-user Interference
➢ The magnitude of the channel impairments depends on the
type of channel
Attenuation:

➢ Signal attenuation or degradation exists in all media

➢ Increases with distance
➢ Wireless medium has the highest attenuation
➢ Optical fibers have less attenuation (as low as 0.2 dB/km)

17
 Challenges in Communication
Distortion:
● Signals distort during travel through medium (why?)
➢ Wire: frequency dependent attenuation
➢ Optical fiber: Delay differences in different modes, frequency dependent
attenuation, highest dispersion
➢ Wireless: Delay differences due to multi-path propagation, time dependent
randomness of particles, frequency dependent attenuation => highest
distortion

● Inter-symbol interference due to distortion

18
 Challenges in Communication
Noise:

● Channel noise/ External noise

➢ Random, undesirable electronic energy that enters the communication system
via the communicating medium and interferes with the transmitted message
➢ Human made noise (automobile ignition radiation, microwave oven), natural
noise (lightning)
➢ External noise can be minimized with proper design

● Receiver background noise/Internal noise

➢ Thermal noise and random emission in electronic devices
➢ One of the main problems in communication
19
 Challenges in Communication
Interference: Unwanted signal as like noise, but more structured

Interference of waves

➢ Electromagnetic interference (EMI)

➢ Co-channel interference (CCI)
➢ Adjacent channel interference (ACI)
➢ Inter-carrier interference (ICI)

20
 Channel Characteristics
Propagation constant

● Attenuation constant, α :
Determines the attenuation
of a signal of frequency ω
over a unit distance given
in nepers/unit length

● Phase constant, β:
Determines the phase
change (delay) in a signal
of frequency ω over a unit
distance given in
radians/unit length
21
 Channel Characteristics
For distortionless transmission:
Transmission is said to be distortion less if the input and output have
identical wave shapes: (i) amplitudes of all the frequency components are
multiplied by the same factor, and (ii) all the frequency components are
delayed by the same amount.

Thus, in distortion-less transmission, the input x(t) and output y(t) satisfy the
condition:
y(t) = Kx(t - ) => Y(ω) = KX(ω)e-jω = KX(ω)ej (ω) Phase delay:
where is the delay time and K is a constant. tp= - (ω)/ω
|H(ω)| = K = e- (ω) = - = β/ω
ω Group delay:
α K
ω
= -β tg = - d (ω)/dω
ω = dβ/dω
● p and g both
-ω are constant for
Amplitude response Phase response
distortion-less system
➢ Equalizer can be used for minimize amplitude and phase distortions
22
 Electromagnetic Spectrum
Electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible
frequencies of electromagnetic radiation

23
 Radio Spectrum (3 kHz – 3 THz)

*International Telecommunication Union (ITU): An UN organization which

allocates global radio spectrum and satellite orbits

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is the

authority for frequency allocation in Bangladesh
For more details on the application areas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_spectrum
24
 Signal Bandwidth
● Bandwidth: Measure of the frequency contents of an
information signal

● Bandwidth of the base band signal – depends on the type of input message

Speech

Musi
c 25
 Human Voice Bandwidth

The usable voice frequency band ranges from

approximately 300 to 3400 Hz

26
 Bandwidth (for baseband signal)
Absolute Bandwidth is fm, where the spectrum |H(f)|
is zero beyond fm along the positive Absolute
frequency axis. Bandwidth
=B
0
-dB BW (Half-power BW): fm, where for 2B
frequencies inside fm, the magnitude spectra
fall no lower than 1/sqrt(2) times the maximum |H(f)| -3dB
value.
0
3dB Bandwidth
2B3d
3. Equivalent Noise Bandwidth (Beq) is the B3dB
B
width of a fictitious rectangular spectrum
|H(0)| |H(f)|
such that the power in that rectangular band 2
2
is equal to the power associated with the
actual spectrum over positive frequencies.
0
2Be
q
27
 Bandwidth (for baseband signal)
Null-to-null BW (zero-crossing BW) Bn: is f2 – f1, where f2 is the first null
frequency in the envelope of the magnitude spectrum above f0 and f1 is the
first null in the envelope below f0. Here f0 is the frequency where the
magnitude spectrum is a maximum. For baseband, f2 = f0 = 0.
|X(f)
|

0
2B
n

X% Power Bandwidth: fm, where 0 < f < fm defines the frequency band in which
x% of the total power resides. (100-x)% of the total power is outside the
bandwidth.

28
 Typical Channel Bandwidth
● Bandwidth of a communication channel is the difference between the highest
and the lowest frequency that the channel will allow to pass through it

Copper wire: 1 MHz Coaxial cable: 100 ~ 500 MHz Microwave/RF: GHz

Optical fiber: THz

● Bandwidth of a communication channel must be equal or greater than the

bandwidth of the information
29
 Twisted Pair Copper Cable
● Two insulated copper wires arranged in regular spiral pattern
● Number of pairs are bundled together in a cable
● used in telephone lines, Digital Subscriber Line and local area networks

Unshielded twisted pair (UTP): Speed between 10-100 Mbps, Susceptible to crosstalk

Shielded twisted pair (STP): Supports higher data rate than UTP, Less susceptible to
crosstalk 30
 Twisted Pair Copper Cable
●Least expensive and widely used
● Twisting reduces the tendency to radiate radio frequency noise as the radiations from
twisted wires cancel each other
● Twisting also decreases the crosstalk/EMI between adjacent pairs in the cable

31
 Twisted Pair Copper Cable
● Limited in terms of data rate and distance
● Requires amplifiers every 5-6 km for analog signals and repeaters every 2-3 km for
digital signals
● Attenuation is a strong function of frequency: Higher frequency implies higher
attenuation
● Susceptible to interference and noise

32
 Coaxial Cable
● Contain two conductors sharing common axis: a central conductor wire and
a surrounding outer conductor/shield serving as ground
● Most common due to inexpensive, light, flexible and easy to work with
● Less susceptible to interference and noise as the outer conductor blocks EMI
● Support higher data rates and longer distance than twisted pair cable
● Superior frequency characteristics compared to twisted pair
● Requires amplifiers and repeaters for every few kms for analog and digital
transmissions respectively

33
34
 Optical Fiber
● Dielectric waveguide that uses pulse of light instead of electrical signals
● Thin and flexible material to guide optical rays
● Cylindrical cross-section with three concentric links: Core, Cladding and Jacket
● Advantages:
➢ Much higher bandwidth (theoretically 2 x 1013 Hz): can carry hundreds of Gbps
over tens of kms
➢ Smaller size and light weight
➢ Significantly lower attenuation (as low as 0.2dB/km): Greater repeater spacing
➢ Not affected by external EM fields, i.e., not vulnerable to interference, impulse
noise, or crosstalk
➢ Ruggedness and flexibility

35
 Wireless Media
● No use of wire: use Earth’s atmosphere to act as transmission media
● Transmission and reception are achieved using antenna
● Transmitter sends out the EM signal into the medium
● Receiver picks up the signal from the surrounding medium
● Convenient: Supports mobility and flexibility
● Lower capital and operating expenditure compared to wired networks
● Connection quality vary randomly with time due to fading
● Susceptible to multi-user interference
● Less secured
● Network management more complex

36
 Channel Capacity
● Shannon's Capacity Formula (1948):
C = B log2 (1 + SNR), bps
C = capacity (bps), B = channel bandwidth (Hz),

● Capacity increases linearly with bandwidth, but only logarithmically with

signal strength
● Shannon's limit tells us what can be achieved. But, it tells nothing on
how to accomplish it

● Two primary resources in communications:

➢ Transmitted power (should be green, i.e., lower energy requirement)
➢ Channel bandwidth (very expensive)

37
What is the meaning of so called “buying frequency” in
spectrum auction?

38
 Frequency Allocation
National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP) prepared by BTRC describes which frequency to
be used for which applications in Bangladesh

39
 Frequency Allocation
• The higher the frequency, the more the energy is required for the wave. This is true for
any kind of spectrum, not just the telecom spectrum.
• Lower frequencies will use less power, travel further, get less affected by disturbances,
and provide better coverage inside buildings

40
EEE 309 Communication Systems I
Semester: Jan 2022

Suzit Hasan Nayem

Lecturer
Department of EEE, BUET

Email: [email protected]
Office: ECE 915(C), ECE Building
 Part 02:
Noise in Communication
Systems

2
 Noise
Noise:
● Any unwanted signal, whether audible or not
● Noise gets added to the signal and degrades the quality of signal

Noise and Interference:

Although they play a somewhat similar role in electrical systems, they are dissimilar in
nature in one important aspect

➢ Noise is usually composed of randomly occurring voltages, which are unrelated in

phase or frequency and may sometimes be of a very peaky nature

➢ Interference, on the other hand, is usually more structured than noise since it arises
as unwanted coupling from just a few signals (e.g., from other users) in the network

3
 Source of Noise
Artificial or man-made sources:
● Commutator motors
● Spark plugs of vehicles
● Faulty switches
● Fluorescent lights
● Electric shavers
● Power lines

Natural sources: Solid lines:

Man-made noise
● Cosmic (galactic) radiation
● Atmospheric (e.g., lightning
discharge, rain attenuation)
● Intrinsic circuit noise
● etc.

4
 White Noise
● Both thermal and shot noise are characterized as white noise
● White noise means it contains noise of all frequency with a flat PSD
● This is approximately what you hear in empty AM radio channels , you see in empty
TV channel

5
 Types of Noise
1. Thermal Noise (Johnson noise):
It is produced by the random motion of ‘free’ electrons in a conductor
● Any substance with temperature above zero Kelvin (absolute zero) contains some
electrons that are free to move about in that substance. The amount of energy
contained by these electrons increases as the temperature increases, and an
increase in energy means an increase in the average speeds of the free electrons.
However, moving electrons constitute an electric current as electrons randomly
collide with lattice atoms. Since the currents increase with temperature, the noise
power likewise increases with temperature.

● Properties:
1. Thermal noise is present in any conductor
2. The only predictable property of thermal noise is its average power
3. In the case of thermal noise, the power is spread uniformly up to very high
frequency (about a 10% drop at 2 THz)
➢ Thermal Noise characteristic is white
6
 Thermal Noise
The mean-square thermal noise voltage at the terminal of an open-circuit
resistor of value Rs is:

where, (Vn)2 = Mean-square value of thermal voltage

K = Boltzmann’s constant = 1.38 x 10 –23 J/K
T = Absolute temperature of the resistor in Kelvin
B = Equivalent noise bandwidth (system bandwidth) in Hz
Rs = Resistance of the conductor
Thermal noise power (Maximum):

Vn

Rs

Unit: dBm
T = 300 K
7
 Types of Noise
2. Shot Noise:
● Generated in active electronic components due to discrete and random
emission of electrons
● Shot Noise normally occurs when there is a potential barrier (voltage
differential). PN junction diode is an example that has potential barrier.
When the electrons and holes cross the barrier, shot noise is produced.

● In simple terms, shot noise is caused by random fluctuations and random

emission of electrons, particularly In transistors. In effect, it means that in a
communication system, in addition to the main signal, there is a background
amount of random emissions, which create « noise ».
● In a high power system, this noise is so small in comparison with the main
signal, so it can be mostly ignored.
● In a very low power system, shot noise can be significant. Many modern systems
try to use as little power as possible
● Unlike the Thermal Noise, it is not related to Temperature.
8
 Types of Noise
2. Shot Noise:
●A resistor normally does not produce shot noise since there is no potential
barrier built within a resistor
● If the active device provides amplification, the noise also gets amplified
along with the signal
● Shot noise characteristic is white

in = RMS value of shot noise current

e = Charge of an electron
Ia = Average current
B = Bandwidth of the system

9
Types of Noise

Shot Noise

10
 Types of Noise
3. Impulse Noise:
● Impulse noise can occur from switching transients in electromechanical
switching offices or from rotary dial telephones
● Step-by-step switching is the most frequent source
● Impulse noise is usually measured in terms of number of pulses per
second

4. Quantization Noise:
● Quantization noise arises during the
digitization process as the sampled
values are different than the quantized
value

11
 Signal To Noise ration (SNR)
● SNR is a measurement parameter in use that compares the level of
the desired signal to the level of background noise.
● it is the ratio of signal power to the noise power,

● Often it is expressed in decibels.

12
 Noise Figure (NF)
Noise Factor , F relates the SNR at the input of a network (or device) to the
SNR at the output of the network (or device)

Noise Figure , NF the difference in decibels (dB) between input of a network (or
device) to the output of the network (or device)

30d
B

NF = 10 dB
13
Noise Figure (NF)
Si = Signal power at the amplifier input
Ni = Noise power at the amplifier input
No = Noise power at the amplifier output
= GNi + Na = G(Ni + Nai)
Nai = Amplifier noise referred to the
input
G = amplifier gain

For n-stage cascaded system:

14
 Noise Figure (NF)-Problem

dBm (decibel-milliwatts) is a unit of level used to indicate that a power level is

expressed in decibels (dB) with reference to one milliwatt (mW).

15
 Noise Temperature
Any white noise source can be specified in terms of an effective noise
temperature Here,
T00 is the reference temperature of the noise
source, i.e., customarily taken as 290K

T0R is called the effective (equivalent) input

noise temperature of a device (e.g., an
amplifier)

● Noise temperature is an alternative of NF, but equivalent characterization of

noiseness of a device
● In general, applications involving very low noise devices seem to favor the effective
temperature measure over the NF

16
 Encountering the Problem of Noise
Alternate Options:
1. Increasing transmit power: Not feasible
2. Increasing bandwidth: very expensive
3. Amplifier at the receiver side: Not useful as it amplifies the noise as well
4. Amplifiers along the line
5. Regenerative repeaters along the line

Amplifiers along
the line

17
 Regenerative Repeater vs Amplifier

Regenerative Repeater
along the line

Repeater regenerates the signal so that Amplifier increases the amplitude of the
the noise can be reduced or eliminated. signal with the noise.

Amplifiers

18
dB, dBm, dBW

19
 Example
Consider a system as shown in the figure operates at T = 230C with a
bandwidth of 2GHz. The length of the transmission line is 10 km.
Signal attenuation and noise gain along the transmission line are 1
dB/km and 0.5 dB/km respectively. The gain and the noise figure of the
amplifier is 100 and 10 respectively. If the signal power at the input of
the amplifier is 1mW, calculate -
(i) noise power at the output of the amplifier
(ii) SNR at the end of the transmission line

10 km
 Channel Capacity
● Channel Reliability of a system is expressed in terms of Bit Error Rate(
BER).
● Is it possible, to transmit message with a zero BER in noisy
channel?
● Before Shannon's theory no one believed that.
● Shannon's Capacity Formula (1948):
C = B log2 (1 + SNR), bps
C = capacity (bps), B = channel bandwidth (Hz),

● Capacity increases linearly with bandwidth, but only logarithmically with

signal strength
● Shannon's limit tells us what can be achieved. But, it tells nothing on
how to accomplish it

21
 Channel Capacity
Shannon's Capacity Formula (1948):
C = B log2 (1 + SNR), bps
C = capacity (bps), B = channel bandwidth (Hz)

Observation
● Two primary resources in communications:
Transmitted power (should be green, i.e., lower energy requirement)
Channel bandwidth (very expensive)
➢ We can trade Bandwidth and Signal Power to maintain accuracy. But this
not one to one trade. Doubling the SNR will not compensate halving the
Bandwith.
➢ This is the upper limit of throughput. If there is no noise, the capacity
∞
would be infinite, C=

22
 Channel Capacity-Practical example
Case-1:
Softspoken & fast Person ( low signal Power) , Difficult to Understand
( As a receiver, our Bandwidth is limited , along with Low SNR Capacity is
Low)
Case-2:
Fast & Loud spoken Person ( high signal Power) Likely more easy to
Understand
( as signal Power is raised, and so the SNR)

Will Doubling the speaker volume allow us to speak twice faster?

Case-3:
Slow & Loud spoken Person ( high signal Power) Best scenario for receiver

23
EEE 309 Communication Systems I
Semester: Jan 2022

Suzit Hasan Nayem

Lecturer
Department of EEE, BUET

Email: [email protected]
Office: ECE 915(C), ECE Building
 Part 03-0:
Modulation

2
 Types of Transmission
❑ Two types:
➢ Baseband transmission
➢ Carrier Modulation/Passband transmission

3
 Baseband Transmission
Baseband
➢ frequency band of the original message signal
from the source or input transducer
➢Most baseband signals (audio, video) contain significant
low-frequency component
➢ A baseband bandwidth is equal to the highest
frequency of a signal or system Spectrum of a signal
at baseband
Baseband transmission
refers to transmitting the signal directly, without any modification to the spectral content
Drawbacks of Baseband Transmission
➢Baseband signals have overlapping band - results in severe interference if
sharing a channel
➢ Cannot be effectively transmitted over the wireless channel
➢ Can be transmitted with copper or coaxial cable for dedicated transmitter-receiver
pair
4
 Passband Transmission / Carrier Modulation
➢ Baseband signal is imposed on a high frequency carrier
➢ The amplitude, frequency or phase of the carrier(s) is varied according to amplitude
of baseband signal, which is called modulation
➢ Modulation shifts the baseband signal to a higher frequency range

Modulating (message) Signal

Modulated Signal

5
A Comprehensive System Model

6
 Significance of Modulation (1/2)
❑ Modulation is a process where some characteristic of a high frequency carrier wave
is varied in accordance with the amplitude of an information-bearing signal

1. For efficient utilization of frequency spectrum:

• Use of the available frequency bands
• Simultaneous transmission of multiple users

2. To suite the channel requirement:

Say a channel that essentially acts like a bandpass
filter. For efficient transmission, it would be
necessary to shift the message spectrum into the
passband of the channel intended. For instance,
long distance ionospheric propagation is possible
for frequencies in the range 2 to 30 MHz. Beyond
30 MHz, the propagation is line of sight. Also,
preferred frequencies for satellite communication
are around 3 to 6 GHz.

Modulation allows to send a signal by shifting the

baseband signal to the bandpass frequency range.
Optical Fiber
7
 🤔
Significance of Modulation (2/2)
3. To decrease antenna
length:
• For transmitting a signal, the
antenna length must be of the order
of a wavelength (e.g., λ, λ/2 and λ/4)
Why ????

• For a signal of 1 Hz (λ=3*10^8 m),

antenna length has to be 375,000
Km (considering λ/2 )!!

• If the same signal is modulated to

some high frequency, say 100 MHZ
(λ = 3 m), required antenna length is
1.5 m
8
 Significance of Modulation (2/2)

4) To increase the operating range:

❑ Signal requires more energy to travel longer distance
❑ Planck's formula: E = hν, h = Planck’s constant, ν = frequency of the signal
❑ high frequency has low fading and travel more distance

9
 Types of Modulation
1. Analog/Continuous Wave Modulation: Analog baseband signal using analog carrier
(bandpass channel)
A. Amplitude Modulation (AM)
B. Angle Modulation
i) Frequency Modulation (FM)
ii) Phase Modulation (PM)
2. Digital Modulation: Digital bit stream using analog carrier (bandpass channel)
A. Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)
B. Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)
C. Phase Shift Keying (PSK)
3. Pulse Modulation: Analog narrowband signal using pulse (wideband baseband channel)
A. Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM)
B. Pulse Time Modulation (PTM)
i) Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) / Pulse Duration Modulation (PDM)
ii) Pulse Position Modulation (PPM)
C. Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)
D. Delta Modulation (DM) A, B: Analog pulse modulation
C, D: Digital pulse modulation
10
 Amplitude Modulation (AM) Family
Amplitude of the carrier signal is varied in accordance to the instantaneous
amplitude of the modulating (message) signal

❑ Double-sideband modulation (DSB)

➢ Double-sideband modulation with carrier (DSB-WC) / AM
➢ Double-sideband suppressed-carrier transmission (DSB-SC)
➢Single-sideband modulation (SSB)
➢ SSB with carrier (SSB-WC)
➢ SSB suppressed carrier modulation (SSB-SC)
❑ Vestigial sideband modulation (VSB)
❑ Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM)

11
EEE 309 Communication Systems I
Semester: Jan 2022

Suzit Hasan Nayem

Lecturer
Department of EEE, BUET

Email: [email protected]
Office: ECE 915(C), ECE Building
 Part 03:
Amplitude Modulation (AM)
Family
❑ Double-sideband (DSB) modulation
➢Double-sideband suppressed-carrier (DSB-SC)
➢Double-sideband with carrier (DSB-WC) / AM
➢ Double-sideband reduced carrier (DSB-RC)
❑ Single-sideband (SSB) modulation
➢ SSB with carrier (SSB-WC)
➢ SSB suppressed carrier (SSB-SC)
❑ Vestigial sideband (VSB) modulation
❑ Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM)

2
 Amplitude Modulation
The amplitude of the wave is altered in proportion to the message
signal, such as an audio signal, in amplitude modulation.

Amplitude modulation is a modulation technique extensively used in

electronic communication to send messages through radio waves

/Message signal

3
 Amplitude Modulation?
How do we do that?

Let’s consider , message signal, m(t)

carrier signal , cos(ωct)

So the Amplitude modulated signal AM(t)= m(t) cos(ωct)

4
Amplitude Modulation

AM signal generation:

5
 Amplitude Modulation

Original Message spectrum Modulated signal spectrum

Important feature:
❑ Message signal has Bandwidth B , whereas modulated signal have bandwidth 2B
❑ Modulated signal spectrum consists of two copy of original message spectrum ,
one at +fc another at , -fc.
❑ This two are Upper side band (USB) and Lower side Band (LSB) respectively
❑ That’s why it is called Double side Band (DSB) modulation.
❑ In addition there is no discrete carrier component , and it is called Double side
Band suppressed Carrier (DSB-SC) modulation.
6
 Amplitude Modulation

Can we chose carrier frequency randomly?

Case: Carrier frequency is smaller than Bandwidth fc<B

❑USB and LSB will overlap and , message information will be lost.
❑So, fc/B >1
7
 DSB-SC: Principle (2)
DSB-SC Demodulation:
The process of separating the
original information or
Synchronous/ Coherent /
SIGNAL from the Homodyne Demodulator
MODULATED CARRIER (Detector)

1 1
e(t ) =  DSB − SC (t ) cos c t = m(t ) cos 2 c t = m(t ) + m(t ) cos 2c t
2 2

After LPF:
8
 DSB-SC: Modulators (1)
1. Multiplier Modulator:

2. Non-linear Modulator:

Characteristics of non-linear element:

❑ The carrier signal does not appear at the input of the final BPF
❑ The bridge acts as a balanced bridge for the carrier only
❑ As the modulator is balanced with respect to one of the inputs, it is called single balanced
modulator 9
 DSB-SC: Modulators (2)
3. Switching Modulators:

Principle:
❑ The multiplication operation is replaced by a simpler switching operation
❑ Multiplication can be achieved multiplying m(t) by any periodic signal φ(t)
of the fundamental frequency ωc

Thus,

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 DSB-SC: Modulators (3)
w(t) as φ(t):

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 DSB-SC: Modulators (4)
Switching Modulator Circuits:
A. Diode-bridge Modulator:
Diode-bridge works
as a switch

Series-bridge diode modulator Shunt-bridge diode modulator

❑ When terminal ‘c’ is +ve with respect to terminal ‘d’, all four diodes conduct
❑ As D1 and D2 (also D3 and D4) are matched, terminal ‘a’ and terminal ‘b’ are short circuited
❑ When terminal ‘d’ is +ve with respect to ‘c’, all four diodes are open
❑ Thus, switching of m(t) at a frequency of fc is achieved
❑ It is a single balanced modulator
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 DSB-SC: Modulators (5)
B. Ring Modulator:

❑ Positive Half-cycle: D1 and D3 conduct

❑ Negative Half-cycle: D2 and D4 conduct

wo(t) = 2w(t) - 1

After BPF:

A double-balanced modulator: Both the inputs are missing at the input of the BPF 13
 DSB-SC: Demodulators
❑ The principle of Demodulation is same as modulation
❑ Essentially involves the multiplication by carrier, So all the modulator can be
used a demodulator too.
❑ The only difference is in case of filter .

❑For modulator, multiplier is fed into a bandpass filter

BPF

❑Whereas in the demodulator , multiplier is fed into a bandpass

filter
LPF

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Switching Demodulators

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 Problems in Demodulation
❑The demodulation requires the multiplication of the
carrier

❑ This type of recovery system where the carrier of exactly same phase and
same frequency is used , is called synchronous/ coherent detection

❑ The carrier must be exactly synchronized with the carrier

❑ But the carrier may have travelled thousand miles and suffer from
significant frequency shift , doppler shift
❑ Such a receiver would be harder and costly to implement this type
receiver
❑So, what is the alternative?
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 Cost effective demodulation

Message is the envelope of the final transmitted signal.

So, detecting the envelope will be alternative way.

Envelope detector !!!

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 Envelope Detector
Do you remember any envelop detector circuit?

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 Envelope Detector
Do you remember any envelop detector circuit?

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 Envelope detector demodulator
.

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 Condition for envelop detection
❑The envelop should be positive for all time=t.
❑How do we do that?
❑Forcefully making the envelope positive by
adding a

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 Condition for envelop detection
❑The envelop should be positive for all time=t
Why????? How??
❑How do we do that?
❑Forcefully making the envelope positive by
adding a DC value, A
[A+m(t)]*cos(wct)
❑That is in effect, sending an extra carrier along
with DSB-SC signal
 AM (t ) = Ac + m(t )cos ct = Ac cos ct + m (t ) cos c t

❑This is called DSB with Carrier or simply AM signal 22