EEE 309

Communication Systems I

Angle Modulation

Dr. Md. Shah Alam

Professor, Dept. of EEE, BUET
Angle Modulation: Principle (Hakin 4.2)

 Angle of the carrier is varied according to the message

 Carrier amplitude remains constant
 Provides better discrimination against noise and interference than AM
 Required higher transmission bandwidth than that for AM
 Trade-off between channel bandwidth and noise performance

Angle modulated wave:

A simple case of an
unmodulated carrier:

Relationship between instantaneous phase and frequency:

Two common methods for angle modulation:

kp = Phase sensitivity
1. Phase Modulation (PM): factor (radians/volt)

1 di (t )
fi (t )   f c  k p m(t )
2 dt

Phase-modulated signal:

kf = Frequency sensitivity
2. Frequency Modulation (FM): factor (Hz/volt)

Frequency-modulated signal:
Angle Modulated Signal: Example 1 (tone modulation)

Carrier

Message
(tone)

PM signal

FM signal
[fi(t) maximum where
m(t) maximum]
Angle Modulated Signal: Example 4.1 Haykin
Properties of Angle Modulated Signal
Property 1: Constancy of Transmitted Power
Amplitude of PM and FM waves is maintained at a constant value equal to the carrier
amplitude for all time t, irrespective of the sensitivity factors kp and kf
=> Average transmitted power of angle-modulated waves is a constant

Property 2: Nonlinearity of the Modulation Process

Consider PM:

For m(t) = m1(t):

For m(t) = m2(t):

For m(t) = m1(t) + m2(t):

(Prove the nonlinearity for FM by yourself)

Property 3: Irregularity of Zero-Crossings

PM signal

FM signal

=> In angle modulation, the information content of the message signal resides in the
zero-crossings of the modulated wave. The irregularity of zero-crossings in angle-
modulated waves is also attributed to the nonlinear character of the modulation
process.
 Property 3: Irregularity of Zero-Crossings (contd. …)

Two special cases:

1. The message signal increases or decreases

linearly with time t, in which case fi(t) of the PM PM wave
wave changes from the unmodulated carrier
frequency to a new constant value dependent
on the slope of m(t)

2. The message signal is maintained at some

constant value, positive or negative, in which
case fi(t) of the FM wave changes from the
unmodulated carrier frequency to a new FM wave
constant value dependent on the constant
value of m(t)
Property 4: Visualization Difficulty of Message Signal
The difficulty in visualizing the message waveform in angle-modulated waves is attributed to
the nonlinear character of angle-modulated waves

AM wave
Easy to visualize the effect

PM wave
Difficult to visualize

FM wave
Difficult to visualize
Property 5: Tradeoff of Increased Transmission Bandwidth for Improved
Noise Performance

 An important advantage of angle modulation over AM is the realization of

improved noise performance

 This advantage is due to the fact that the transmission of a message signal by
modulating the angle of a sinusoidal carrier wave is less sensitive to the presence
of additive noise than transmission by modulating the amplitude of the carrier

 The improvement in noise performance is, however, attained at the expense of

a corresponding increase in the transmission bandwidth requirement of angle
modulation

 In other words, the use of angle modulation offers the possibility of exchanging
an increase in transmission bandwidth for an improvement in noise performance.

 Such a tradeoff is not possible with amplitude modulation since the transmission
bandwidth of an amplitude-modulated wave is fixed somewhere between the
message bandwidth B and 2B Hz, depending on the type of modulation employed
Relationship between PM and FM
Replacing m(t) with
it’s integration,
PM: changes PM into FM.
Thus, a signal
FM: that is an FM wave
corresponding to m(t)
is also the PM wave
corresponding to it’s
integration. Similarly,
a PM wave
corresponding to m(t)
is the FM wave
corresponding to it’s
differentiation.

 PM and FM are uniquely related to each other

 This means that the properties of PM can be deduced from those of FM and vice versa
(Lathi)
This indirect method of sketching PM works as long as m(t) is a continuous signal. If
m(t) is discontinuous, it means that the PM signal has sudden phase changes and,
hence, the derivative of m(t) contains impulses. This indirect method fails at points of
the discontinuity. In such a case, a direct approach should be used at the point of
discontinuity to specify the sudden phase changes. This is demonstrated in the next
example.
This scheme of carrier frequency
modulation by a digital signal (Fig. 5.Sb) is
called frequency shift keying (FSK) because
information digits are transmitted by keying
different frequencies

The derivative of m(t) (Fig. 5.5c) is zero

except at points of discontinuity of m(t)
where impulses of strength ±2 are
present.
This scheme of carrier PM by a digital
signal is called phase shift keying
(PSK) because information digits are
transmitted by shifting the carrier
phase.

FSK and PSK will be

discussed in future
Bandwidth and Spectrum of Angle Modulated Wave
For Tone

NBFM

NBPM

???????

* Both are similar to AM

Frequency Modulation (FM) (Haykin 4.3)
Consider a case of single-tone modulation:

is called the frequency deviation representing the maximum departure

of the instantaneous frequency of the FM signal from the carrier frequency.
Δ𝑓 is proportional to the amplitude of the modulating signal and is independent of
modulating frequency.

θi(t) of FM wave is

β = Modulation Index

FM signal:

In a physical sense,  represents the phase deviation of the FM signal; that is, maximum
departure from angle of the unmodulated carrier. It is measured in radians.